Poisoned Truths: Book 1
by Virodeil
Summary: For NaNo Camp April 2013: Book 1 of 7: Before Murtagh, before even Selena, whom would Morzan go to great lengths to hide – to protect? And why? But then again, all humans have roots somewhere, be they grand or humble, rich or poor – and a rejected orphan would prize what any other children would likely take for granted, regardless of anything, defying even age and war alignments.
1. 0: Story Information

Title: Poisoned Truths  
Author: Eärillë

_Story Information_

General Rating: PG-13  
General Warnings: alternate universe, confusion, dark themes, mature themes, odd behaviourism, sensitive topics, violence

Story Summary: Who was Morzan before the Fall? What was he like? Who is he now and what is he like? People say that history is written – or told – by the victors, and that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter; does it apply too to the faceless monster that we know now?

General Genres: Action, Angst, Character Study, Drama, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, SciFi, Stream-of-Consciousness, Suspense, Tragedy, Vignette  
General Characters: Ajihad, Barst, Birgit, Brom, Cadoc, Delwin, Elain, Enduriel, Eragon II, Evandar, Fadawar, Formora, Galbatorix, Garrow, Gedric, Gertrude, Gilderien, Glaerun, Horst, Islanzadí, Ismira, Jörmundur, Kialandí, Lifaen, Linnea, Loring, Marian, Morn, Morzan, Murtagh, Nadara, Narí, Nasuada, Niduen, OCs, Oromis, Quimbi, Rhûnön, Roran, Selena, Sloan, Shruikan, Tara, Trianna, Tornac

Fandom: _The Inheritance Cycle_  
Universe: Book-verse, Rey-verse

Story Notes:  
* The story is divided into 7 small books for 7 different stages in Morzan's later life until his death. Original characters and characters you might have never thought could be related to each other play a big role here, so please beware and please refrain from reading more if you are not inclined to read about either or both; the former category is partly necessary and partly desired, while the latter category is fully that of my own habbit and inclination whenever I involve myself in a fandom – and I have been writing fanfiction stories for _The Inheritance Cycle_ for almost 7 years now.  
* The story is a rough first draft until I have finished _all_ 7 books, since I have the bad habbit of neglecting things, being too lazy to continue, or being too anxious to continue. Please bear with mistakes and gaps and odd things or phrases; but please don't hesitate to point such things to me, as I _shall_ edit the story some time. If the mistake is great enough, however, I shall put it to right immediately, and I shall thank whoever has told me about that most profusely. I am not a native speaker of English: my English has improved over the years (you might freak out if you read my old things on SF3) but I am still learning so much even now, so undesired things are bound to happen.  
* The summary for each book alongside the name of the beta-reader(s) who help(s) me with the story (if there is any), the range of ratings, Warnings, genres and characters (both canon and original) are listed before the beginning of each book. But after each chapter in the book, the current rating, warning(s), and word count alongside the current time and location are listed for easier tracking without spoiling too much about the content of the chapter itself. Also, this "Story Information" section will be present before each book just so that readers have ample forewarning.  
* The point of view, genre, time and location – as well as the word count – can shift rapidly, sometimes extremely, from one to the other. Please beware, and please pay attention to things listed below the title of the book. (They are not just stuffy decoration, after all.) Additional Note: The current name tagged in the chapter title is the indication of from whose point of view the mentioned chapter is, hence the often-repeated "chapter names;" and there is only one point of view per chapter anyway.

Author's Notes: I'm sorry: for now, I am posting the fic here just as a precaution if – God forbid – it is lost before the finish of this mad race to 50K, in the end of the month. Please feel free to rant, butcher, or ignore it, but also please keep in mind that is is a _first draft_ and I shan't tweak it by any means, just keep ideas, until after April is over. Still, I hope you'll at least moderately like it. Oh, and just another warning: abundance of fluff, strangeness, and twistedness – and perhaps confusion too.

- Rey

_Book 1_  
By: Eärillë

Book Summary: Everybody, even a Dragon Rider, even a vicious, mad Dragon Rider, originates from somewhere and goes through these stages: newborn, babyhood, childhood, teenage, and adulthood; Morzan is not the exception. So how if the infamous Red Rider is suddenly faced with the remnence of his past? Will he accept it and go on or reject it and run away? Or does he seek it in fact?

Range of Ratings: G to R  
General Warnings: nudity and intimacy (unrelated to sexual acts), odd behaviourism, sensitive topics, vicious thoughts and actions  
General Genres: Angst, Character Study, Drama, Family, Fluff, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Stream-of-Consciousness

Canon Characters: Morzan, Tornac  
Original Characters: Alna, Ezeva, Minnha, Nalyar


	2. 1: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

1. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: none  
Genres: Drama  
Word Count: 905

Afternoon, Day 14 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Shop Area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

"You said we would be gone by today!" She looks so askance and bewildered. It looks funny on an elven visage; I nearly laugh.

"Would you give me another week, please? Just to insure that we shall be able to leave quietly without attracting any attention? Because I do have a shop here," I wheedle. She glares scathingly at me. Change tactics then: "You shouldn't have advised me to open a shop if you'd rather we be gone so soon, you know."

"So _soon_?! It is nearly _a month_ and we rarely staid in the same place for so long!" A squawked protest, an exasperated sigh: a strange combination of sounds, coming through the throat and vocal cord of an elf. "Are you really sure about this? Another week? Are we not risking so much here if we stay for that long? And I did it just because we needed a disguise! Not that I would be perfectly agreeable to stew here for so long. It is so close to _his_ holding! People say that _he_ _often_ comes here! So it is also why I wish us to be gone from here _now_."

Nalyar is an expressive elf, one of just a handful that I have ever met, let alone befriended, but she is rarely _this_ expressive. Well, I am usually not this expressive myself, actually. We have changed, I suppose, and it is all because of the long, harsh defeat we have been enduring so far. Decades have passed since the horrible battles between kin and friends and allies, but the mental scars remain until today; and besides, we are currently staying in a village which is neighbours with a fortress mansion occupied by a Forsworn Rider

_The_ _first_ Forsworn Rider, actually, who now goes by the name Morzan, "Evil Taint."

The Forsworn Rider who was – and _is_ _still_, to me – my _son_, my _eldest_ son, who went by the name Orailesk, "Light Bringer."

Well, actually, if I would admit it to myself, this very thing is the reason that we are still here, that I am quite reluctant to leave the village. My son … Surely, he is still my son even after all this? Surely he still recognises me? Nalyar knows of this, I think, and that is why she has been insisting quite strongly that we depart this place as soon as possible. She never says it outright though, and neither has she claimed that my judgement in this matter has been impaired by a foolish, dangerous hope; but the implication is there, and I always feel defensive – defensive for _him, for his sake_ – every time she touches this subject.

But I cannot help it.

And I hope still, against all odds.

That is why I still have the heart to say, "I'll deal with him if or when he comes here."

She regards me with an incredulous expression. I give her a small smile. It must look half-hearted, though, because her disbelieving look turns to one of pity, which I despise.

I look away, pretending to be interested in the trinkets in our shop area despite a month's weight of familiarity with them, and my spine straightens on its own accord. (Although, being a runt like I am, I must look silly instead of impressive.) I just … I do not know what I hope to be gained by defying her admittedly better judgement, really, but I just yearn to be as close to Orri as I can. I asked her to spare her own life and flee while she could, to leave me behind, but she rejected it every time. So what can I do now? She refuses to leave me, and I refuse to leave this place, and we have been having this argument since three days ago, and I am quite fed up by it.

Something on the set of my shoulders, my countenance, or perhaps even the air around me must be looking forced or odd too, because she gives me a long-suffering sigh and waves her arms and hands in a gesture of exasperation. (A quite ironic thing, actually, seeing that she picked it up from Orailesk when he was quite little and more prone to expressing his emotions outrightly in the presence of us: his family.) The very sight of it tickles me, and twitches up the corners of my lips.

She glares at me. "Am I looking funny?" she snaps, but straightens up again and looks more 'elven-like', although various emotions still play on her face, which I guess is a self-conscious response to my own unwitting, unsuppressed reaction to her gesture.

I chuckle at her. I cannot help it now!

She turns away and glares at the jars of pickled herbs on the far-left corner table. I turn away from her myself, trying to rein down my unwanted mirth. "Sorry," I say at last, after several deep breaths; but I do not dare to look at her yet. I do not want to hurt her feelings now, however unintentionally, not after I have turned down her proposal for us to leave for perhaps the dozenth time already. I am risking her life, not only my own, after all.

But still, that very fact never manages to finally shake me up and make me agree to leave.

Yes, perhaps I am mad, as she has often claimed on the heat of her argument.


	3. 2: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

2. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: fractured thoughts  
Genres: Suspense  
Word Count: 1,144

Dawn, Day 21 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Living Area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Morning is breaking. I can feel it in my bones. Yet another day is beginning. Another day without Dee, without Enn, Without Tor, without Orri, without Mother, Father, the little ones, and the rest of my ragtag family, adopting and be adopted by each other and mostly not by blood. Out of everyone that I love – and perhaps love me back – there is only Nalyar here, in the small, backwoods village so close to both the Spine and the dreaded stronghold of the even-more-dreaded "Slaughterer, the Red Rider." Most have perished singly or collectively in this past century, and the surviving few may still do so or be lost to … that man … if he is not stopped soon.

_If._

The grey reflection of the new light on the ceiling flickers. I blink. I have just realised that my chest is heaving, that there is probably too little air in my bloodstream to support vision, let alone motion.

I force my lungs to stop its frantic pumping, and my heart to cease pounding. Try to, really.

And I fail. I feel too trapped to be calm. A bad start for the day. A bad oamen perhaps. Maybe I should have joined Certina, Hilnadin, and Vizya in the Far East, hiding with little Árnoth. Maybe. But I am the Head now – no no no no, _must_ _not_ _think_ _about_ _it_. Must not, or somebody will tear it out of my mind.

No no no! Must not think about _that_ too.

A faint scent, familiar scent, wafts into my nostrils. Familiar, safe. But still, as agitated as I am, my body flinches and sits up quickly, curling into a ball away from the source of the scent. I cannot control my own reaction now. Really, really bad.

I blink again.

The outlines of Nalyar's face comes into view. I let loose a sigh.

Oddly, on the sight of her, my chest and heart at last stop pumping as if there were no tomorrow. I suppose the confirmation that one member of my family is still alive is the one that really calms me down. Ironic, and painful too, that yet another that dwells only about a mile away somehow does not count …

I turn away from her. My eyes feel too warm to be normal. I do not want her to see any sign of pain on my face, let alone tears. I am the one who insists to stay here; I must be strong for the both of us.

Is it really worth it though? Since I have just found out that … that …

My hands shake. Dimly, I realise that they are curled into tight fists. (Since when though?) I want to hit something, to feel the pain, or to destroy, to –

Something soft but firm lands on my right shoulder. A hand. Nalyar's, must be.

I shake it off and scramble off the bed – the narrow, thin, rickety wooden bench covered by a large straw-filled cloth sack that I call my bed for this last month. I cannot stand it. I cannot stand her pity, or even her empathy, right now. I just cannot stand … everything. I cannot even stand myself, what I have become. I do not even know what I want to do, even as my feet bring me past the curtain of dangling knotted strings that separates the apothecary from the living area.

The sight of glass bowls, bottles, flasks, viles, jars and beakers is oddly comforting. But it also reminds me about how firmly we have settled here, despite Nalyar's denial about the reason she advised me to set up a shop in this village, and despite my own reluctance to be captured by those who were once parts of my family.

Those that I _still_ wish to be my family despite everything.

Those that my heart partly denies existing anyway, despite my mind's insistence that they still _do_ exist.

But the effects of dragon-flesh poisoning can only be neutralised by the fluids that the body secretes in response to feelings and emotions of genuine affection! In the manuscript that I stumbled upon long ago at least …

And it was not proven right, too, in that musty-smelling, old-looking scroll, or perhaps it was but the writer did not care or never had the chance to add that titbit.

I am gambling here. _We_ are, Nalyar and I. And the price for losing is worse than death, if the one that used to be Áltor or the one that used to be Orailesk ever captures us. But it is indeed hard to stay away from any of them, not after we have discovered this faint but vital hope that their old selves can still be recovered, that they can still be the respective brother, son, lover or nephew that we cared for and loved so much.

And for me, it is even harder since I know from past knowledge and the background of the respective individuals that Orri was too used to being abandoned, while Tor was too used to holding to anything and everything that he loved or cared for tightly by both figurative hands. So if I were indeed captured by Orri …

Something is pounding at my mental barriers. I flinch and whirl around, flailing wildly. An attack? From whom? So soon? Have we –

Nalyar's scent fills my nostrils again, and the silhouette of her figure stands just outside the range of the lone three-wigged candle that gutters in the makeshift holder dangling above my head.

Oh. Just she.

And it seems that she has been trying to talk to me without avail, for she gestures around frantically with her arms and hands again, and her voice when she speaks is tinged with tired exasperation: "We need to depart today, Ell. It is a week already. I have packed everything that we need and things that are too dangerous to be left lying about. We can just – "

She freezes, with a straight, stiff posture that belies her fright.

And then I hear it. Someone was inside our living area.

The person must have snuck in via the lone window there that we never thought to close.

He or she must have heard us.

Ice washes through my entire being.

But while most people freeze when being frightened, I become wild.

I yank the front door open with a burst of wordless magic and grab Nalyar's nearest hand, yanking it as hard as I can, urging her to flee, to proceed me through the door.

But it is _hard_ to usher a tall, strong, frozen elf past a clutter of breakable items without breaking the said items and thus alerting the intruder, especially when I am nearly incoherent with fear as well.

And when she finally moves, it is already too late.


	4. 3: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

3. Alna

Rating: PG  
Warnings: confusion, , fractured thoughts, mild violence  
Genres: Action  
Word Count: 1,353

Dawn, Day 21 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Shop Area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine;  
Living Area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Someone screams: female, familiar, tinged with a lilt, as if a harp or flute is being grated with a serrated knife.

Nalyar.

I lunge forward at the source of the voice. I cannot trust my vision any longer. My hands hit something: one solid and the other yielding. I punch at the solid one as hard as I can. A male low growl. I scrabble and punch, but often hit the yielding contour instead of the solid one, resulting in more screaming.

Nalyar is saying something, pleading, persuading. Her voice is moving – no, dragged, by the sounds of it, and I can hear wooden table-legs scraping the stone floor and glasswork tinkling alarmingly.

She is being brought into the living area, perhaps, or the front door. Either way is bad for her and for me as well. I cannot allow it. We must go. We must go. We must run, run away.

"Let her go!" I shout – no, I want to shout, but what comes out is a watery, histerical half-scream. "Let her go," I repeat, but now it is not a scream at all. It is a shame that I am pleading now, genuinely as well, but I have no heart to argue, to fight, to maim. And now there are two familiar scents caught by my nose, as I am rushing towards the silently-grappling pair.

Voices and noises filter in from outside the wooden walls: questioning, wondering, agitated.

I blink, and blink, and blink again, but my vision remains unrecorded by my brain. I bump at the intruder and Nalyar, yank at the interlocked limbs fighting for dominance, try to separate them, to bring Nalyar away hopefully to safety, but I may as well try to roll a boulder ten times the size of my body alone without magic.

Still, I try. Fright drives me. I can think about nothing else, can feel nothing else, can see nothing else but the sight of Nalyar's horrified countenance the last time we were nearly captured by the man that used to be Áltor.

She must escape, even if I do not.

And truth be told, I partly do not wish to escape. I wish… I wish …

"Orri," I whisper: confused, hating how tremulous it sounds in my ears. But I _do_ want him deep in my heart, even if a part of it does not acknowledge that he is still _alive_ and near.

The grappling seizes, but without any aid from my arms, both weakened and strengthened by heartsickness and fear.

The opponents separate themselves from each other, but not by much. The sharp sound of a blunt something hitting flesh. A loud male grunt: pained and angered: recogniseable, familiar even.

I gasp.

_Orri_!

But no no no no, it must not be he. It is not he now. No longer Orri, no longer Orri, not my – no no no, still my – but no, dangerous, not to be trusted, unpredictable – dragon-flesh poisoning –

Affection? Can it …

A loud male growl: definitely angry, resentment boiling over, mad like a wounded boar. Nalyar, calling my nickname. A choking sound – hers.

"Let her go!" I plead. Cannot command. Cannot ask. Just plead, plead and hope there is at least a tinge, a remnence of the boy that I sacrificed any chance of bearing a child of my own, that I cared for, that I raised, that I loved, that I loved still.

It is as if a small, cold knife is twisting in my heart. Or perhaps it is in fact. I cannot determine. I do not know.

My eyes are warm, too warm. My eyeballs squeeze tight. Cannot see, even more than before.

I stumble forward. Yielding contour. Nalyar's scent. She is staggering, but catches me as my legs waver. But hands – strong hands, large hands with a cruel grip – are separating us in a harsh yank. I stumble backward.

Sharp edge, wooden edge. Table legs scraping harshly. Edge gives away, tilting. Glassware shattering. I cry out: alarmed, pained, surprised.

They are grappling before me again as I fall with the table: growls, hissed acquisitions, blunt hits against flesh, grunts, yelps, curses.

The side of my head hits a wooden something hard as my body slams against the stone floor. My hearing and sense of smell dim into near nothingness, come back a little, dim again, totally blank out for a moment, filter back again slowly –

Sounds of tables crashing, glasswork falling, words in the Ancient Language. Smells of pungent medicines, cloying blood, sweat – recogniseable scents.

The apothecary.

Fighting. Still fighting, near silently, desperate it seems, none winning.

I scramble into a sitting position, groaning. Dizzy, very dizzy and nauseated. Want to wretch. Want to help. But help whom?

A vicious hit. A loud female yelp. More crashing. A bark of flat, harsh laughter. Orri's voice – no! Morzan's voice – taunting, mocking. Hitting. Female yelps, weaker than before, half sobbing: regretting, lamenting.

No no! Not like my son at all. Where is he? Why –

My throat tightens up. Cannot breathe. Choking: cannot talk, cannot call out. The knife in my heart turns to ice. Pain pain pain …

Nalyar. Nalyar in trouble.

Not Orri, not my Orri there.

I scramble onto all-fours, crawling, crawling to the noises. Have to save her. Have to let her go, run away. She was right. I was wrong. Not Orri, not my son, but – no no no no no no. Have to help her. No thinking. No talking. No feeling.

Pain in my head, in my eyes, in my throat, in my chest, in my heart, on my back.

Dizzy. Very dizzy. My head is spinning as I move. Cannot take it far. Doubt I can stand, much less fight. Doubt I will even if I can. Nalyar, Orri: sister, son: family, family.

Still Orri. Must still be he, deep in there. Still my son. I will not allow it. He is mine. I will take him back, save him, save them.

But the men-that-are-not-my-family equals trap, cage, binding, perhaps slavery …

Cannot think. Cannot feel. Numb.

Glass tinkling near the floor; perhaps shards. Rustling; someone is scrambling. Light footsteps running away. Heavier footsteps pursuing. No no!

I lunge up to my feet and forward, following the noises, trying to. Have to get there. Have to stop it. Have to … do something; perhaps finish it once and for all – but how?

Too dizzy. I stagger, flail around wildly, grip something hard and cold – stone? I wretch, but nothing comes up into my mouth except bile. I swallow it back down past the lump in my throat. Must move forward. Must go on. Chase them. Stop them.

Loud roaring: maddened, drunk, furious. Never heard it. Does not sound like Orri at all. But his voice … Can always remember his voice.

I try, I do, I try, but a sob escapes my throat. Cannot say he is my son, not even to myself, not even in the language in which lying is possible.

My son is _dead_. He is not my son. I cannot believe it. I do not want to believe it. My son is still _alive_!

I lurch onward, regardless of anything, regardless of everything. Perhaps I am similarly mad. That would be fitting, no? But his not – no he is – not –

Open space. No crutch. Nothing to lean against. I stumble, pitch forward, catch myself just in time, stagger onward.

Sound of a booted foot hitting wood. Wood cracking, growled curses.

No female voice. No Nalyar.

That enraged roaring …

Nalyar is gone.

I … cannot believe it. I am happy. I am disappointed. I feel cold. I feel relieved. I feel betrayed. I feel … amazed.

A gurgling chuckle forces past my throat. Mad, mad, yes, perhaps I am mad.

But Nalyar is gone. Nalyar is free.

I am alone. I am alone with a not-son-but-still-son. I am alone … but who is he?

Recogniseable scent. Still the same. Smell blood still though. Is he wounded?

I reach out. He whirls. I cannot step back.

Pain on my forehead, struck by bony flesh.

Black. Nothingness.


	5. 4: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

4. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: none  
Genres: Character Study  
Word Count: 1,554

Late Morning, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Soft. So soft. So soft and comfortable. I have not felt like this for quite a long time; it is now alien to me. Where am I? What has happened? What is going on? Why am I here? Where is _here_?

The solemn atmosphere of my surroundings is unrecogniseable. The scents as well, the feel, the very sense deep in my bones …

Where was I last? What was I doing? Who was with me? Someone was with me, I remember that, but who? And the place where I was was not this … solemn and grand as well, comfortable and nearly scentless. It was spare, filled with the fresh-but-pungent smells of herbs and medicines. It was … home. This is not home. But where is this?

The unease that I have been feeling spikes up. I am definitely in the _wrong_ place. Who brought me here though? I distantly remember … a scuffle, violence between two familiar individuals dear to me. Was I brought by the victor of the fight here? Then again, who was the victor? And where is _here_?

Is it safe to open my eyes? Is it save to move, to take the risk of alerting a possibly-hostile party that I am no longer unconscious? But if I only stay like this for who knows how long, I may have wasted a chance that I may never get again in the future.

Compared to how I have been living in these seven decades or so, my life has been meagre but not hard. The last dangerous, life-changing dilemma that I had to face was when I had to decide between fleeing to Du Weldenvarden with Father and Brom and staying well outside of it, in the war-torn areas, half a decade before the Empire was formed.

Gah. Stewing over past things is not going to solve my current problem as well. And to be honest, waiting passively like this will not help me either. I am just … afraid: afraid of what I am going to find once I open my eyes, and of what will become of me after that, I think; just so hard to admit it, even to my own self.

Nothing in or on my body hurts in the least. It is … odd, according to my subconscious memory, but welcome nonetheless. The garments that I am garbed in do not feel like my own – too soft, too delicate – but it can mean anything from the best to the worst scenario. I have been well-cared for while I was incapacitated: a good oamen, or a prelude to torture.

I crack my eyes open slightly and move my fingers and toes. The appendages brush at a silken something draped over me – a blanket perhaps? Dim light filters into my view, but I can see nothing else unfortunately.

I blink open my eyelids and just … stare. I cannot believe it!

A mosaic of coloured tiles depicts vines, flowers and open sky on the ceiling, completely hiding the plain white covering that must have been the bed for this beautiful project. The ambient light, perhaps fed by a covered lamp, allows my newly-awakened, night-visioned sight sparkled glimpses of iron wires and tiny pieces of gold, silver and gemstones embedded among the ceramic bits. And when I dare tear my eyes away from the luxurious ceiling and stare at all around me, I find myself to have been deposited in a large bed covered by a sea of silks in an even-larger room that I have always imagined fit for a queen of the Broddring Kingdom.

_Where_ _am_ _I_?

Who put me here? For what purpose? Where might such a room be found in all the human-populated portion of Alagaësia, except Ilirea?

I close my eyes and curl tightly into myself, shivering. It is as if I had been drenched in icy water – no, drowned in a pond in the Far North.

Ilirea!

Now Urû'baen …

The seat of the Broddring Kingdom. No, the _former_ seat of the Broddring Kingdom.

Now _his_ seat, the capital of the new kingdom, called simply "the Empire."

So I am now in _his_ custody?

It is far, far, far worse than being captured by Orailesk. At least if I were captured by him, I might have the chance to run away and he might not have the heart to pursue me afterwards, being so used to being abandoned and belittled all his childhood and young adulthood, however cruel I would be to do so to my own son – but this is war, and he is no longer the Orri that I knew – but …

I bite my lip, glad when I can taste pain and a little bit of blood from the action. My heart clenches, squeezes, twists. I cannot, still; the greater part of my soul cannot accept that the person that is now Morzan is yet my son, although a part of it has already considered the said son to be dead more than seven decades ago.

But how if I have indeed been captured by him than the one who used to be my brother – Áltor? His repentant eldest birth-brother, the King of the Broddring Kingdom after their birth-father, gave Orri the means to build a castle for his own after all, before his death by the hands of a band of angry Urgals. The mosaic on the ceiling did not look old, and everything here does feel … almost new, still fresh and glowing, clean, unlike in the citadel in Ilirea that we – my family and I – shared with the Royal Family during our stay there, slightly before and during the darkest years of our existence yet.

Áltor has been too used to defending everything and everyone that he claims as his own, keeping them close by any means, ever since he fully entered into the order, ever since he was taken by that _filthy_, monster, that horrible joke of a master – Voniel. (He had to, I understand, in order to cope with the life under total slavery and mental torture while still being more-or-less sane.)

Orailesk was not even considered as alive by his own birth-father, was given a foul name by his birth-mother, and was often taunted for either that very name or his mismatched eyes. He could claim little as his own and only a handful of people as his friends, most of whom were his adoptive-family members anyway. He was used to being abandoned, disappointed, belittled, judged negatively, and shunned.

Really, among the two, I would rather choose having fallen into the lair of the latter, given the higher chance of escape.

But then again, would I? Can I really run away from the person that still bears the face and voice of the son I fought and cared so hard for, who was not even my birth-son, without looking back or even _coming_ back?

Bile rises up past my throat and into my mouth as I realise the answer.

No.

I would not. I will never be able to. My love for him has chained me to him tighter than if he ever controlled me using my true name. An example for when a mother's love is a curse, maybe, but I cannot find the bitterest humour in it now, unlike when I told Nalyar that I would stay just a little closer to Orri for a while.

Nalyar …

Yes, I remember now. Nalyar. Nalyar and I and our apothecary-hut in Lanstream Village, which sat quite close to the stronghold, Orri's – no, Morzan's – formidable, notorious fortress. Nalyar's insistence that we left soon. Nalyar and Orri fighting …

I roll onto my back. My chest and stomach heave. Bile gags me, trickling a little past the corners of my lips. I gasp and choke, coughing.

Orri. I must be at _that_ fortress now. The mad, probably-twisted dream that I had been having has at length and at last come true. How … ironic – and yes, mad, quite insane, as Nalyar would affirm quite solemnly if she were here.

Nalyar … What is she thinking now? Is she wondering or cursing at Vrael's own sanity – or lack of it – when he chose me to bear his burden next? Or is she … dead? Or captured by the person who used to be Áltor, who used to be her secret sweetheart, whom she considered her mate even though he probably never found out about that?

Cold sweat. I can feel cold sweat on my body, and my stomach is still roiling, and my mouth is bitter-sour with bile. Not good. Cannot think about her now. Cannot even think about myself now. Must not. Must conserve my strength, must brace myself for the worst, must try to find avenues of escape, for the very last, desperate moment.

Because even – or perhaps given that – she has little to no magic at her natural disposal, Nalyar has Kull-like strength and endurance and Shade-like force of mind. I would not stay undefeated for long if I were to fight her in any way. And if not-Áltor captured her and bound her by her true name …

I cannot help it. I scramble off the bed and wretch onto the rug beside it.

There are things worse than death, after all.


	6. 5: Morzan

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

5. Morzan

Rating: R  
Warnings: confusion, disturbing thoughts and imagery, fractured thinking, implied graphic violence, sensitive topics, vicious thoughts  
Genres: Action, Character Study, Framed Story  
Word Count: 1,748

Morning, Day 21 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Shop area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine;  
Living Area at the Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Elves can be quite graceful, persuasive, dignified, wise and all those unearthly things that, compared to them, humans seem to lack. But they can also be quite spiteful and vicious, far more than humans can be. I have learnt that a long time ago, being raised in a misfit family which half the number consisted of elves. I witnessed and became the brunt of that dark side of this surreal creatures also during that decade, the span of ten too-long years that I have been trying to forget without any avail. And I am again witnessing a spectacle of such evidence, although it seems quite tame compared to all others before it.

The room is in total shambles. It may have been a shop before, or a warehouse, or both, but now it looks like the hideout of a mad herbalist wrecked by robbers: glass fragmens and wood splinters everywhere, cracked table-tops lying strewn on the deadly-shiny stone floor, spots of blood in some places …

When an elf is angry or runs in a vengeful path, he or she does not leave anything standing on his or her wake.

Fitting, really, given that Nalyar is an elf – a rather expressive one at that – and she has always been good with herbs and chemicals, and Né'a too.

I ball my hands and tighten my jaw. _Them_.

I approach one of the spots of blood, the one clinging to the segment of a fallen table-top. Bending down, I lick at it.

Wood. Sweat. Medicine.

I want to spit out the disgusting taste. But something that my tongue belatedly catches holds my saliva back.

_Blood_.

_Elven_ blood.

Nalyar's, must be.

I have tasted elven blood several times, in small quantities, alongside human blood. Accidental, mostly, it is. They are … interesting.

They are harmless. Just a small temptation. Unlike dragon blood.

_Dragon_ blood.

_Dragon_ flesh.

I gag and wretch at last. Bile and foamy fluids spill out onto the fallen table-top before me. The acid mixture completely covers that spot of blood now.

I heave again, even more nauseated. But there is no more to expel. I have neither eaten nor drunk anything since last afternoon. I wish I had not visited the back kitchen then. I wish I did not have to see that cow being partially slaughtered, with chunks of meat missing from its white flank and a large bloody knife ready to take more from it.

White. Blood. Flesh. Knife. Force-fed. I was force-fed. White scales. Rangy white flesh bathed in still-so-hot bright-red blood. Rainya Tor howling. Me gagging. Cold dead flesh. Still-so-hot blood. Strange-tasting blood, almost like the perversion of a heavy liquor, forced down my throat. Disgusting, tempting, addicting, horrifying, intoxicating, strengthening, changing … warping …

The cooks served the flesh of the cow for lunch. I fled the dinner table.

They forced us to eat _her_ flesh. We were tied down, beaten, helpless. Rainya Tor howling, cursing, vowing vengeance – but it was all useless. They were laughing, laughing at us, puny humans trying to be mightier than our filthy origins they said. They always said so, even when I was small and riding in Né'a's arms, clutching at her tunic and staring wide-eyed at the cruel, vicious world I was born into. _They_, those elves who had always hated the fact that humans were added into the pact of Dragon Riders.

Né'a … Né'a would not come and rescue us, they said. She did not care, they said. They had left trails for her to find, for her to fall into their 'arms' just like we had before her, they said. But she would not come anyway because she just did not care, they claimed, even though people – even the spiteful ones – always said that Né'a loved us so much back then – Rainya Tor and I.

She did not come, indeed.

She never came, even after we emerged victorious, the both of us, having defeated so many elven scums and their human puppets, seizing back our own land from their choke-hold, controlling those who had controlled us by our true names, tortured us bodily and mentally and mindly, who had made us _eat_ _her_ _flesh_ and _drink_ _her_ _blood_, after we had thought she had turned to ashes in the way of her kind – of _our_ kind as well, the _Dragon_ _Riders_.

I _waited_ for her. I waited for her even _now_, _decades_ later. But she _never_ came. She dwelt _so_ _near_, as if taunting me with her presence. Hers and Nalyar's; Nalyar, who was supposed to be my aunt-come-older-sister still. She knew I was nearby. She _must_ know. But she did not come. She has been here for _a month_ and a week already – the _both_ of _them_ have been here! Am I _dead_ to them, to _her_? But I am _alive_! I am _here_! I _have been_ here! And she _told_ _me_ that she would _always_ be there for me, whatever may come … Is she truly a liar as they claimed her to be then? Am I worth nothing more to her now, just as I have always been to nearly everyone else? But she _promised_ – ! She promised I would be _special_ to her, no matter what.

I went to her at last. I could wait no longer. I _went_ _to_ _her_, wanted to take her and Nalyar with me. But Nalyar was gone. Nalyar _hit_ me, _kicked_ me, and then she was _gone_. Only Né'a was left. But Né'a was indeed the person I sought the most, the person I wanted, that I had to admit that I had been yearning for.

She was crying, yelling, pleading, pleading to _me_. She said "_Orri_"! But I am no longer Orri, am I not?

No, no, I was still, am still, still Orri. Still hers. She is still _mine_, my mother, my Né'a.

But I hit her … _I_ _hit_ _her_. I hit her on the forehead with force with _my_ _fist_. I was still enraged with how Nalyar had been treating me, as if I were not family. I was still outraged that she was gone. I lost control. The not-my-blood running throughout my entire being clouded my mind, lent me wild strength, warped my perception.

My vision blurs. I swipe at my eyes. Angry. I am beyond angry now. No no, not quite right. I … She was _my_ _mother_! She provided me with _her_ own _body_ to nourish from, saved me when I should have been _dead_. Why does she abandon me _now_? And all those rebels think and judge that I am _cruel_, I am _evil_. Why did she not just leave me to die as a newborn, if she were actually kind-hearted as people expected a Dragon Rider ought to be? Why did she have to nurture me, to raise me, to let me _claim_ _her_ as _my_ _mother_, if she would claim me as _dead_ now while I am still _living_, still breathing, still waiting for her?

I lurch onto my feet, sway, stagger, lunge forward. Need to hurt, to break, to destroy. Need to feel: still alive, still alive, can still hurt, can still break, can still … can still …

Pain pain pain. Hands slamming against something. Wood; it is wood breaking. Sharp, digging into my flesh, splinters perhaps.

Would she feel it, if she were still alive when they cut her open and took chunks out of her? Would she hurt like me perhaps? Or even more? Much more? Much much much, seeing that her flesh and blood were being choked down her own bonded's throat? He howled so loudly, so brokenly, so madly … Would she do that in his stead? Howl and keen and rage and thrash futilely, with face red and wet and crumpled and twisted with agony beyond bodily measures?

Flesh and blood … Flesh and blood … It was supposed to be a good phrase, it is: a phrase for family, for good-hearted ties that can outlast anything and everything. It is supposed to be _good_, to be a hope in hardships and failures, to be a sanctuary when lost or scared or doubtful …

Swing. Crash. Pain. Sharp. Digging sharp. Warm liquid trailing down, down. Hands wet. Face wet. No rain though … No, just pain, good pain, numbs all others, like – no no no! Not like that. Do not think about that.

Swing. Louder crash. Pain pain pain. Cannot stand right. Foot, left foot: something wrong there, but good. Pain, lots of it, numbs all others …

Moving air: wind, light grass-fresh, morning-fresh, hits me, twines me, caresses …

I blink. Eyes heavy. Eyes wet. Vision blurry. Ears pounding, rushing. Hot. Too hot.

But the wind is cool …

Hot, hot, body hot, body throbbing, pounding, hot … blood … Blood rushing throughout my being: huge rush of energy: wild strength, vengeful strength, thoughts skittering wildly …

Still-so-hot-bright-hot-red-blood, not-my-blood …

I choke, gag. Cannot breathe. Something lodged in my throat.

Just like then, that long, long, long span of years in which they had kept us as their playthings. Rangy white, sleek, sticky, pungent –

Noises afar: alarmed, confused, concerned. Not good. Must not be here. Not here. Not home. Go home.

Cannot walk. Cannot see. Do not want to. Too hot, too soaked. Need to let go, need to do something, anything. Giddy. Numb. Angry, angry, so angry, so hungry, hungry for blood … liquor-like blood …

Away, away, must be away. People means danger. Must be avoided. Must go home …

Pain, throbbing pain on my left foot. Strange … I am wearing boots, so how? But good pain, numb, curbs the wild energy, curbs all feelings. Just go home … go home … but home is too far. And where is home now really? No Né'a here, no Ré'a.

Hit something like dangling cords. No, not ties, not noose. I would know. Pass through. Good.

Good smell: familiar, comforting, like … home.

Right foot hit something. Little pain. No, not good, too little. Need more. But so tired, so confused. The scent is so familiar: comfort, warmth, safety, sanctuary. Home, I am home. Need to rest, just a little while. Nobody will bother me here. Safe, home. Safe, warm. Not hot, not any longer; just warm. Can rest, just a moment, just rest, sleep …

Wards up. Lie down. Curl up. The scent is so familiar, so comforting, so … like home …


	7. 6: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

6. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: none  
Genres: Character Study  
Word Count: 2,327

Late Morning, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

It was always interesting when an individual found out how obsessed I was with clenliness and neatness: some were simply shocked and speechless, others were doubtful and sarcastically disbelieving, while a few were bemused of how contrast one side of me could be to the other. They accepted the fact after a while though, or were simply gone and never bothered me again.

I was always firm or even furious to those who defied my version of perfection, that is why. But I was most outraged – and I think my family knew of it – when I myself did the deed, which I guess softened their protests to me a little and made them tolerate this fetish of mine to a degree which might have been impossible without it.

Now is not different, however weak and disorientated I am feeling. Using every scrap of energy that I have, I get rid of every drop of vomit off the rug with magic. It is hard to hold back yet another heave and yet another fit of wretching, but I try mightily. I will not have any energy left to wipe off another puddle of vomit.

Besides, someone is knocking at the door.

Who? If it is – no no, better not to speculate. Better to face it head on. It is what I am best at. Dee is good at stealthy planning and reckless execusion; I am otherwise. My mind is too jumbled for any complicated thinking anyway, let alone any sort of working plan.

So I just disguise my hair colour, eye colour and several features of my face, and wobble to the door.

It opens before I reach it though.

I sway and stagger: surprised, quite surprised, and tired as well.

Light; a flickering, soft light seeps through the widening crack.

A girl stands framed by the open doorway, illuminated by a small three-wigged lantern. I cannot see beyond her, for she is taller than I am, but I can sense that behind her is most likely a long corridor leading to more rooms and other parts of this place.

I am _truly_ in a castle of sorts.

She gasps. She sounds dismayed – young too, and easily awe-struck. "Sorry, Ma'am – I mean I apologise, good mistress. I didn't know that good mistress were awake already," she stammers. Her lantern-light shakes a little. She makes no move to go inside. Strange … She did knock at the door, did she not?

"Who are you?" I ask. I would wince if I could, if I were not using every ounce of my energy to keep standing upright. My voice croaks like a frog, as if I had not spoken for months! I clear my throat in hope of being able to improve it, but hope no expectation of success.

"Where am I? Why aren't you coming in? You did knock at the door, didn't you?"

A little better, but not by much. An improvement, at least; perhaps I should have been a little more optimistic, after all? But I cannot afford light-heartedness and an excess amount of optimism here, if my suspicion of where I am proves true.

"My name is Minnha, good mistress," she says just loud enough for me to hear. A low courtsy in plain skirts. Bowed unadorned head, timid but willingly gentle demeanour. A servant then? Must not be a slave or a true-name-bonded servant; they would be more … rebellious, or cowed, or either too boystorous or silent. A good sign, a good oamen I hope.

"I am not your mistress," I tell her. "I don't even know where I am, or who took me here. And why did you come here? Were you meaning to check on me?"

"My lord brought good mistress here," she says, her head still bowed, her feet still firmly planted on the doorway. "My lord took good mistress here himself, to this wing. He healed her and put her to bed with my assistance. He said she be not to come out of this suite until he comes back and meets her himself, and he told me to take pretty good care of her, best that I can."

She mentions _no_ name. She mentions _no_ place. Perhaps her gentle timidity is just a cover after all? But she feels too genuine to my senses for me to doubt her sincerity …

Another tactic then.

"Would you come in then? You meant to check on me, didn't you?" I ask her, in the gentlest and sincerest tone I can muster at the moment. It is unsurprisingly easy somehow. She has awakened in me the desire to mother someone, to be a mother to someone.

But I have already been a mother to – no no no no no, may not think about it – about him – _must_ _not_ think –

"Could you tell me who your lord is, and where we are?" I ask as she steps inside gingerly and closes the door softly behind her.

She falters on her steps, then halts completely. Her present bearing signifies to me that she is cringing. Bad news then, and probably bad sign – bad oamen – as well.

My legs give up under me. If she were not here, I would have fallen onto the rug. Not so bad though; a more-or-less soft surface at least, and it is green – beautiful forest green – too.

I blink at the light. The lantern is resting on the stone floor near the closed door. Minnha is helping me stand upright by grasping gently but firmly at my left arm with one hand and holding on to the other arm with the other hand, encircling my back in a supporting manner.

"Could you please help me to a chair?" I request. I hate how my voice sounds weak, but I cannot help it. I do need to take a little rest from physical strains and think about all the titbits of information that she has been willing to give me so far. It could be quite important, crucial …

We are like a pair of drunks wobbling back home from a tavern, I feel as we cross the rug. She seats me in a comfortable upholstered chair by the large bed, which I have not noticed before given that it was completely shrouded from view by the shadows. She says nothing, even after she has lit the lanterns positioned on the walls and numerous side-tables and returned to my side, standing facing my right side and slightly in front.

And I say nothing as well. I am just too … surprised. I look around, disbelieving. My mouth may be gaping, but I cannot care less at the moment.

The room may be large; I could feel it even without the aid of my sight, so I would not be surprised by it. But it is _barren_ in regards to fourniture, despite how luxurious and comfortable the few items that are indeed present, or how many side-tables visible from my seat, set in seemingly-random places and all bearing a lit lantern. There is the large, silk-piled, pillow-piled bed on the middle of the room and pushed against the opposite wall from the door, then the armchair that I am occupying, the large writing desk with matching chair on the other side of the bed, a not-so-big wardrobe positioned nearby on my right, and the vast expanse of thick, soft, lush forest-green rug that lays before me and Minnha, which I can now see is strewn with pale-grey and pale-gold plain silk cushions and numerous books and scrolls; but other than that, the room is painfully empty of fourniture. My heart pangs with an emotion I cannot even describe to myself. The space is so _big_, but its occupied portion is _too_ _small_, as if there is something wrong with its master's or mistress' mental health, or as if the person is an intensely-private person, or as if he or she is not accustomed to an excess of wealth or luxury, or as if the said person has taken this room for himself or herself just out of necessity, to prove a point, despite his or her lack of need of it; or as if … well, all of those points, really.

I look intently into Minnha's eyes, willing her to speak her mind truly and frankly this time, willing her to _answer_ me with the words that I seek. "Who occupied this chamber before me?" And if she notices that my voice wobbles slightly, I cannot care less about it.

I am not disappointed.

"My lord occupied this suite before good mistress was brought in," she says softly, refusing to look at me and staring at her unshod feet instead. "We were rarely allowed in to the family wing, and nobody except myself ever saw the insides of this suite, good mistress. And in all my life, I only ever saw it this once." Her tone is awed, reverent even, but I do not know if it is because she is awe-struck at the the never-done-before, never-expected before honour that her master was bestowing her, or if it is because she adores her master so much to the point of worship. She could be either my best friend or my bitterest enemy … not quite preferable, now. Extremes are never good in chancy situations like this. But I have to take what I get, I suppose.

"And who is your master?" I ask again, trying not to put any emphasis on the words. Please please please please please answer me well and truthfully …

"My lord forbade me to give good mistress any information about his identity. I'm sorry, good mistress." She tenses. Her figure becomes rigid under her plain-but-clean simple dress and the spread of wavy blonde hair pooling at the sides of her face and on her shoulders and back.

I sigh. I should have known – expected – that it would not be so easy.

"Could you at least tell me if he intends to return soon here and meet me right afterwards?" I change the tactic again. All the curtains visible from my position are closed and heavy enough for light to be nearly unable to filter through; but some does, creating a dim reddish glow on the what-must-be crimson fabric. It must be afternoon then, with strong sunlight. I might have some time to concoct a plan …

She is hesitating. I can see that. She is shifting slightly. I fear I am not going to get any answer from her about this.

But I am mistaken, yet again.

"He does," she says softly, and at last she looks at me directly again, without any prompting from me. "He promised he would. He had me take care of good mistress until he comes back. He is a good master to us. He looked so … contented … so happy, when he left, if good mistress know my meaning. He will come back, I'm sure of it."

Her eyes _burn_. They burn with something that I often saw gleaming in Orri's eyes when he was little and accompanying me and Dee to the training grounds or to meet the people of Ilirea. They burn like when Orri watched Dee defeat three – human – Riders at once, when Tor crooned "Well-done, little Dee" playfully at him whenever he managed to accomplish a feat, when I presented him with something that he had pined for some time without daring to ask it from anyone …

My eyes warm up and turn heavy. My vision blurs.

Orri.

The girl – Minnha – gasps, sucks in a breath, as if she has just realised that she has probably said something she ought not to have said.

Probably; but I am thankful of her slip-up. I will not tell anybody of it anyway … probably.

"Thank you," I simply say, as I blink my eyes furiously to clear them up. "Now, is there anything I can eat or do to pass the time until he comes back?"

I have decided not to strain her further. Someone quite familiar to me must have brought me here. The details could mean both Tor and Orri; but I shall only worry about things when they come. The information is enough as it is, as inadequate as it is, somehow. I shall not be the cause of her trouble, not so much. If I cannot lighten my own burdens, at least I can lighten hers.

Because she reminds me _too much_ of Orri, the son – _my_ son – who is now beyond my reach.

Her brilliant smile is almost like Brom's, that little fool, but the solemn light in her eyes that remains even when she looks so clearly happy brings the image of Orailesk in various conditions and stages of maturity to the fore of my mind. I shall stay as close as I can to her, then, just so that I can glimpse my Orri in her whenever possible.

Is it cruel? I do not know. I am desperate enough to make use of all means at my disposal.

After all, nobody _ever_ told me that I was by any stretch a 'holy person' and I never regarded – never do so either – myself as people's stereotype of a "kind person." They always call me "Little Midget" or "Little Devil" – the latter when they are particularly spiteful or angry at me – or even "Avalanche." And I know I have lived up to those names more or less thus far.

They call me "the wild girl," mostly behind my back. _I_ _am_ _that_, yes, some of the times; there is no use denying it. And short of killing, nobody can cage a wild something forever.

So someday, by any means, I shall be free, _free_ from all the phantom memories chasing and haunting me, _free_ to declare my opinions on things considered forbidden now – _free_, _free_.

I smile back serenely at Minnha.


	8. 7: Morzan

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

7. Morzan

Rating: G  
Warnings: confusion  
Genres: Dark Fluff  
Word Count: 2,408

Late Afternoon, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Hut in Lanstream Village, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine;  
On the Way;  
Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Nothing remains. I have made sure that nothing of them or theirs remains. I took the makeshift mattresses with me, and also the box stashed under the bench-come-bed that bore Né'a's scent. I have burnt the hut, shielding the sight with a magically-conjured fog as the red, hot flames licked up to the sky. There is nothing there now but burnt soil and stone and blackened glass fragments, as I have gathered the ashes resulting from the burning and put them into a spare pouch on my belt. Nobody shall ever return here. Nobody shall ever dwell here again. And I in turn get to keep a memento of my mother's home, which should _have_ _been_ _mine_ as well. I have deposited Né'a in my holding before I came back here, and she shall stay there until either of us is dead. (Preferably me, as I cannot bear seeing or knowing her dead, however far the rift between us has grown. She is _still_ my mother, after all.) She shall not be wont of a home – or of anything else, for that matter, seeing how squalid the hut looked before I reduced it to ashes.

The noises of the villagers are getting closer – too close – curious perhaps, morbidly so even, seeing that the notorious Rider and his huge, mad red beast dwell close by. Perhaps they wish to see a traitor or a rebel being butchered or burnt alive, so they can have a fresh gossip to bandy about for the next fortnight or more. Those sick peasants …

I sneer at the scorched ground. They can even use this as evidence that an act of violence has occurred, and they will be gleeful to pursue more evidence, to find out more about what has happened. I must not give them any leeway, or I shall not have any peaceful moments for the next month or so, seeing that some of my servants like to gossip just as much as the villagers here.

Hmm. That reminds me actually, I shall have to retrieve oaths from _all_ the servants that they shall not disclose, willingly or unwillingly, by any means, the fact that I have Né'a in my custody. I do love the man who used to be Uncle Tor, really, I do still, because he is still my family regardless of everything, but I do not believe that he can take care of my mother well in … his current state. I can barely recognise him any longer most of the times, which is quite painful. He _must_ _not_ know about her, or she shall be transported to Urû'baen and I might never see her again except as a reward when I do missions, like a piece of delectable meat to a loyal and victorious hound. It will be an even more torturous existence than the one I am leading now, and I do not think I can bear more. I do not like to constrain my servants so, especially those who are truly loyal to me and come from the old palace servants that I smuggled out of Urû'baen years ago, but I shall take no chances in this case. My life and Né'a's are hanging too precariously on the balance as it is.

I wave my right hand, ignoring the burning agony that stings it and shoots up my arm, and let the magic flow out of my body through the gedwéy ignasia. The soil further up away from the area of the burning rises and floats toward the blackened patch, covering it. A few words and more magic, and the ground in the radius of three meters from the blackened patch is tamped flat and packed as if it has not been recently disturbed. The job done, I sway on the spot. I should not have used so much magic after … that episode … maybe; but it has been necessary, and I do not regret it.

Well, not quite. I still need to conceal and carry my pillage – these three not-so-small items resting by my boots. I still need to go home _on foot_ as well.

I can feel a grimace creeping up my face. _Much_ magic. I still need to use much energy to do these things. Gah!

Glaring at the pitiful-but-priceless mattresses and the wooden box, I weave the spells for extra dimention around them, concealing them for safety and ease of carriage. I can feel my store of energy depleting in an alarming rate – no, no, it is not good at all – I have to find another source – I must go home …

I open the mind-link to my red-scaled-sister-twin, and wince. Connecting with her mind-to-mind, so intimately, was quite a pleasant experience before … well, before those damned vicious, elf-fooled wild dragons tore everything out of her but her own body: We held many discussions, even more quiet pranks that were unnoticed by most people, light or serious debates and fights … but now …

She is no longer there. Now she is just a wild beast barely tameable with a vast pool of energy in it. I am lucky in that I still remember that it is a _she_, my _bonded_, my beloved _sister_. Others of the so-called "Forsworn," "Wyrdfell," are not quite so fortunate. I rarely contact her mindly anymore, now, only when I have to order her to do something or to take energy from her, like now. It is just too … I have no word for it now, even in my own mind. Disgusting, horrible, terrifying, sorrowful, disorientating, unnerving, perhaps?

My strength is replenished by half. Enough. It is enough. I shall not take more from her. It feels like robbing my own family members or raping a friend: totally unpleasant and horrifying, even traumatic. I at least have enough energy to – hopefully – have a safe trip home now.

So I trudge away from the site of the burning, taking the most roundabout way possible, avoiding those nosy villagers that are now rounding the bend towards the hut that used to be there. Home. I shall be home soon, home to Né'a _at last_, home to stay, stay with her and my no-longer-there-red-scaled-sister-twin. My left foot throbs agonisingly every time I put any weight on it; I can acutely feel my face contorting in a deformed grimace, my eyes squinting. My right foot twinges with pain when I force myself to continue walking, but thankfully it does not hurt so much. As for my hands: they are practically useless now, hanging down limply at my sides, throbbing and burning with each beat of my heart. I do not even dare look and see what they have become. And if an enemy were to ambush me now, the sword hanging by my right hip would be just as useless.

Misery.

A fitting name, especially at present.

The grass-covered path tortures me with its uneven, sloping, hole-ridden, stone-ridden contour. There is the smell of rain in the air too, which will create even more torment for me if it comes true with its promise: the ground will be too slippery to walk on in the current state of my feet. But I have to go home, I have to, I have to. Né'a will not stay cooped up inside the room I put her in for long. And if she defies all the restraints and comes out anyway …

I shudder. No, no, no, I _shall_ _not_ lose her, not after I have just gotten her back again.

Desperation boosts my strength, numbs the agony, makes me surreally alert about my surroundings, makes my mind feel like floating in the clouds with my red-scaled-sister-twin in a lazy flight. I limp steadily, painstakingly along the path, a lone sencient being aside from the wildlife, using the position of the sun as guide. I should have gotten myself a walking stick, maybe, or even a crutch adjusted by magic so I would not have to use my hand to hold it, and then I would be able to go home quicker; but it is too late now; I have no more energy to make myself one or find a branch good enough for that.

The ground turns flatter, more even, neater. I am coming closer to home. Good. I am so, so, so tired … Né'a is there. Né'a will care for me … will she not?

Later, later, I must not think about it now. Né'a is home. It is enough. I can come home to her now. No longer alone. I _am_ going _home_ to _her_ _now_. She is there. I am coming there.

Left (Oww!), right (Auch!), left (Awwh! … Why does it hurt more now?), right (Auch … ), left (Aaargghh … Hurts too much … ), right (_Eep_! Why does it hurt now? It did not hurt so much!), left –

Dirt-smell, stone-smell.

Why am I here? I was … walking?

The ground is so cold, so hard …

Someone is calling. No, _several_ people are calling. Familiar voices, concerned voices. No female voice though. Where is Né'a?

Ah yes, the chamber, my bedroom, I told Minnha to keep her there until I arrive home. I am home now, am I not? I should go there and explain things to her, then. But it is so hard to get up …

I wriggle, shift, put my elbows on the ground, brace myself forward slightly.

Fall back again. The air rushes out of my lungs. Cannot breathe for a moment.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Try again. Shift. Brace forward –

I cannot help it. I groan. (The sound feels piteous, even to my own ears.) I cannot help it. My hands have just struck the ground hard, as my strength fails me. _OWWH_!

A hesitant something touches my shoulder. A male voice calls rather close to my face. Too close, uncomfortable, too close; I cannot allow it, I do not belong to _him_, I belong only to _her_, to her and red-scaled-sister-twin.

"Né'a, Né'a, bring me to her," I mumble.

"Sir, who, Sir?" The man speaks again. "Where, my lord?"

_Sir_, _my lord_ … Something rings in my mind about it – about them.

Morzan. Morzan. They call me Morzan, yes. Lord Morzan, Morzan the King's right hand, Morzan the Slaughterer, Morzan the Red Rider, Morzan wielder of Misery.

Morzan: my _other_ name, my _hated_ name.

Male … they are the guards of my stronghold then.

Good.

"Help me. Help me go to … "

My memory stutters and falters with fatigue for a long moment – or so it seems to me.

"Help me go to the family wing, to my bedroom," I say at last, probably after a while, as my awareness seems to have dimmed considerably. "Take me there." I just barely remember that I ought not speak about Né'a in their presence. Once was enough, and it was a mistake too.

Firm hands grasp at my elbows, lift them up, lift me up. More hands grasp at my armpits, support me up, drag me forward. _Uncomfortable_. But I cannot avoid it. Just for a while, until I arrive there. And then Né'a; Né'a will be there. I am _much_ more comfortable with her; I can bear her touch.

I … crave it.

Cooler air, shade, enclosed space: inside, _home_. My sight is virtually nonexistent now, swallowed up by the constant pain. But I am _home_.

Boots scraping along the stone floor – feet stumble on some moving things – pain pain pain _pain_ … My throat reverberates with it. Pain pain pain pain – my awareness blanks out, filters back in slowly, dims alarmingly again – I cannot care less for now. _Home_. _Né'a_. _Home_.

Babbling voices … Terrified? Apologetic? I cannot comprehend any of it.

Left foot is struck – _owwww!_

I blank out. I do not know how long.

Coming back, but everything is so faint and distant. Home, home, home, Né'a, home, home, Né'a –

"Sir, sorry, Sir. We are here, Sir. What is your next order for us, Sir?"

I cannot hear it well, let alone comprehend what the male voice – terrified, concerned, guilty perhaps? – is saying.

Next. Order. Me. Arrived already. Order. Asked me. Do something. _Will_ do something, anything. Order. Arrived. _Arrived_ already.

"Leave me here. No, leave me inside, but do not look," I manage to say after I do not know how long of silence. (Disgusting: my voice slurs like a drunk. But I _am_ _not_ _drunk_!) "Leave me there. Let … let … Minnha here. But nobody else, nobody else."

My mind blanks out, but thankfully not my awareness – again.

I wrestle it back on the virtual track.

"Nobody is to be anywhere close to here but her. I want … I want all of you – I want everyone – every single one of you – gathered in … in the banquet hall when … when I … when I call you." I pause. Have I forgotten something? Why are they so silent? Are they waiting for more? An explanation? I cannot think – so … foggy …

"Sir, yes Sir." – Must he speak so loudly? My head hurts! But no, it is not right. I was not drinking anything with alcohol in it, was I? My head is spinning though – hurts, pounds, too light, too bleary.

I grunt, or perhaps groan, but I hope I am not whimpering. But regardless, my body is shifted forward again. A door is opened, and we enter an even-more-enclosed area.

"To the bed, my lord?" the same person asks. I shake my head.

_Owwh!_ That _hurts_!

"Floor," I answer – or groan, or whisper, or perhaps even whimper. But I cannot care less now. So close. I can faintly smell something, something familiar.

But I have not been put down. Why? Né'a does not like dirty people getting into bed and other clean surfaces. Né'a likes it neat and clean. Cannot go to bed yet. Still filthy.

"Floor," I manage again. This time I am sure I am _not_ whimpering. In fact, I think they are afraid of something in my tone, because they swiftly obey. (But for the love of Né'a, I cannot comprehend what is terrifying about whatever kind of sound that I have just produced.)

Cool stone again. But willingly this time. Booted footsteps leaving. Door clicking close. Echoing murmurs receding.

Soft, light footsteps getting closer, whispering through the stone. Familiar scent nearing.

Né'a.


	9. 8: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

8. Alna

Rating: PG  
Warnings: mild descriptions of wounds  
Genres: Dark Fluff, Hurt/Comfort  
Word Count: 2,587

Late Afternoon, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Some people are approaching – I can sense it, as I have been extending a tendril of thought out to the corridor beyond the door all this time. Besides, there is an unexplicable sense of apprehension in my gut and bones now.

"Is he coming?" I ask Minnha, who has just arrived with a larger, more solid meal for me. (Firstly, I ate only some meat soup, which she embarrassedly admitted was leftover from the Lord's uneaten lunch yesterday that was reheated for my consumption, as nobody in this place dared touch the meal meant for the master.)

"I do not know, good mistress," she replies hesitantly. "But I think so. Nobody is allowed in the family wing without the permission or invitation of the master, good mistress."

I bite my lower lip. "Please put the tray on the writing desk then," I request, "and keep it covered, please. I shall see him first."

She obeys.

I walk more or less steadily to the door, having gained some energy from the brief rest and the soup Minnha has supplied me with. And yet again, I am beaten to it by those who are at the opposite side of it.

The heavy wooden plank that makes up the door opens ponderously, followed by the entrance of what look like soldiers in civil uniform.

_Soldiers._

I _nearly_ gasp aloud. As it is, I flinch and scuttle back onto the rug, several yards away from the door, having the urge to hide under the bed, concealed by the draperies that curtain down the bed-frame.

But the soldiers bear no weapon … I have just noticed. They are bearing _somebody_ – a _wounded_ somebody who is hanging limply with head lulling to the side and battered condition – in fact. And the eyes of the guards are oddly closed as well, as if they respect the privacy of the master to an extreme degree, or as if they have been ordered to do so by the master himself.

But _who_ is brought _here_? Minnha said that only a few people who are invited or ordered by the master can come into the family wing; and _nobody_ _ever_ saw the inside of this chamber except for the master –

The _master_!

They are bringing in _my captor_!

But was he not just away for a while on a short errand? Minnha implied so, anyway. The man looks as if he is coming home from an intense skirmish, or he was probably ambushed on the way home. But even like this, he is somehow so familiar to me, to my senses, even my sight.

"On the bed, my lord?" who looks like the lead guard asks the man – or so I assume.

"Floor," the man whispers in a hissed groan.

I _know_ that voice!

But what what do all of them mean by this curt exchange of words?

"Floor," _he_ half groans half growls; the guards have not obeyed him, I guess, that is why. It is quite like _him_ that I cannot help from twitching a smile in nostalgia. I _missed_ him. But now he looks to be severely wounded …

Orailesk. It must be _he_. And he _needs_ me.

It is as if a pair of invisible hands were wringing my heart. I did not wish to acknowledge him as my son any longer; but now, when he looks so limp, half conscious, bleeding and battered like this, an instinct I have thought is gone forever resurfaces, and I cannot deny it, for the sake of my peace of mind if not for the sake of his –

No no. I _cannot_ let him _die_. Not for his _life_ – I shall not – may not – gamble about _that_ or worse, ignore it.

I would not be a mother, if I would do that. And the prospect is worse than death somehow.

There _is_ ex-friend. There _is_ ex-spouse. But there is _never_ ex-parent or ex-child.

And, regardless of if I _wish_ he _were not_ my son, or if he does not _want_ me still to be his mother, or if we _cannot_ be together or announce that we are mother and son, _he_ _is_ and _always_ _will be_ my son, my _child_, and being a mother has its responsibilities.

The guards lower him gently onto the stone floor, rise without a word and still without opening their eyes, and turn on their heels, leaving the chamber as if there were no one or nothing of worth of peeping or eavesdropping inside of it, even though I have just heard Minnha utter a small gasp a little ways behind me.

Well-trained: it is the first thing that comes to my mind about those soldiers. Loyal is the second word that I would use to describe them if I were asked by anybody. But then I would have to admit that they are too impassive and unknown to me to judge beyond the face value of their appearance, and that unnerves me.

The figure sprawled face-up helplessly on the cold, hard, uncomfortable stone floor is barely recogniseable as Orri: His hair, though black and as thick as I have always remembered it to be, is matted with sweat and perhaps something else; shaggy too, and too long for my comfort, or the comfort of the Ori that I knew. His body is more muscular than when I last saw him; the result of the long war, rigorous physical training which he used to despise, or years of small battles or skirmishes, or the combination of the three, I do not yet know. His hands are bloody and look to be mangled – fractured, perhaps, dislocated too, or even broken – and like this, they appear much smaller and weaker than those that I remember holding my own hand or lying flat on my back as we embraced. His legs appear all right on a cursory glance, but there must be something wrong underneath the cloth trousers that he wears, and there is definitely something wrong on his feet, hidden by a pair of heavy leather boots. (The left one, most likely, since the boot is torn and worn in some places, as if it has seen heavy duty quite recently.) His skin is darker than I remember it to be, as well; the patches let visible by his long-sleeved, turtle-neck tunic that is.

I have managed to avoid looking at his face so far …

I swallow. What shall I find?

Why am I afraid of my own son?

But he is no longer my son, no longer the child that I raised from newborn until past his adulthood, that I tried so much to defend even during the Fall …

Is he?

Dragon-flesh poisoning – he must be different now, like what I have heard so far from the elves – information grudgingly though truthfully given, from most – the reason why elves abhor eating meat, although they do not mind wearing things made up of animals.

Really though? But there is a sense of … of brokenness in this man, amplified times and times more than before, but it was indeed present in my little Orri, from the moment he realised that Dee and I were not his birth-parents, from the moment he knew he was shunned by both his birth-family and the human world in general for his appearance. And there is also a sense of … abandonment … that I am catching now, a tired resignation, like when he was forced to try to interact with humans and dwarves either as a little child or when he was a Dragon Rider, or when he was obliged to spend some time with his birth-family, as per the agreement between Dee and the King of the Broddring Kingdom at that time – Orri's birth-father – despite the fact that both the Royal Family and poor Orailesk never went along together even slightly well.

Has he sensed my denial of claim on his being my nursling, my child-by-adoption? Or is he sensing my reluctance to approach him, to even _look_ at his _face_?

Imagining what he may be thinking hurts me deeper than the fleeting, horrible thought of letting him die before me.

It is not a conscious decision on my part; but our eyes meet, and stay locked in each other's.

Left pitch black, right icy blue – Orri's unique feature is still there. But they are now jaded and bitter, empty, as if the fragility that I always saw encased in such a strong boy has given way and shattered into little, sharp pieces somewhere in these seven decades or so. And they are presently quite bleary and unfocused with what my sight and feeling tell me as exhaustion and agony, that an inhale of breath chokes on my throat.

I have left _my_ _son_ languish in _pain_ this _long_ moment.

What a _mother_ I am!

I do not know what I am doing – cannot control it – cannot prevent it – but it feels so natural – so … relieving. All that I know is that I am suddenly seated beside the supine figure of _my_ _son_ and touching his palid cheek lightly, with just enough force to know that he is _real_, that he is _here_, with me.

My breath speed up. Underneath the tip of my index finger, muscles twitch feebly.

It is so hard to fear him now, when he is weak and meek and open and fragile. I suppose the three of us were mad, when we hit each other there in the hut that used to be my home this past month and a week. But seeing him like this, I bitterly regret ever hitting him in the first place.

"I'm sorry?" I offer in a whisper. It is so hard, so hard, so hard to admit that I have done something wrong, especially to a child, my child. It seems … wrong; but the action feels right; I _did_ wrong him, not only by hitting him.

He blinks. He just blinks, hiding the terrible gaze – for the very lack of it – of mismatched eyes for half a moment, before revealing it again and letting it clash with mine. It is more focused now, slightly more alive, but the rest is still the same.

He makes a soft, guttural noise in his throat and shifts his head slightly, making the tip of my finger brush across the clean-shaven skin of his cheek, resting at last just under his right nostril. Then he inhales slowly, deeply, while his body shudders with the effort.

I have been forgiven.

I have been forgiven, just that quickly, just that simply, that I am made foundering by it.

Orri's strongest sense was that of smell, ever since he was just a day-old newborn. He loved to sniff at his favourite scents, even when he was a grown-up already, regardless of whatever and wherever and whenever the scents happened to be: pine needles, smoked something, fresh bread, his dragon or mine or Dee's, or persons he was most attached to, and regardless of the individual's discomfort too in the case with people and dragons. Oftentimes, he showed signs of deep, wordless – or perhaps speechless – affection or brittle insecurity by sniffing at the garments, fingers, neck, or even armpit of somebody he considered most beloved. He forgave wrongdoings or mistakes done by those people also by sniffing at them, when he was comfortable enough with them to let much of his skin visible, or to let them sit less than a hand-span away from him, or to let them touch him.

He is still _Orri_, then?

I cannot deny it now. I _do not_ want to deny it now.

"Child," I breathe, close to his left ear. "Orri." I just wish to affirm that _he_ is _here_, that _I_ am _here_, that _we_ are still _family_, that _he_ is still _mine_, that _I_ am still _his_ –

A presence draws close: hesitant, even timid. Soft unshod footsteps whisper on the rug.

Minnha. I have forgotten about her, in all the turmoil.

I straighten up abruptly, look up, meet her uncertain gaze. "Minnha?" I murmur, uncertain myself. What should I do with her? How if she leaks some truth or rumour out –

The fingers of my right hand, now resting lightly on the side of Orri's throat, reverberates as he makes another, louder, sharper guttural noise.

"Leave," he croaks at last, slurring. "Leave us. Wait at the door. Obey her." His eyes, a little brighter and more aware than before, apparently find hers and hold them captive, for I do not see any flicker to any other direction in her stare. He seems to blank out for a moment, struggle, blank out again, but at length he manages to speak again, to my unexplicable relief: "Tell nobody. Don't even think about … about … about … anything you saw here. Obey her … Leave me here."

Her eyes widen in incredulity. Perhaps she thinks he has gone mad and his mind has been adulled by things that human commoners label as "solcery." Perhaps she thinks I am the cause for his strange behaviour, for her frightened gaze travels briefly to my direction before it returns to him, to his own stare.

Anger is surfacing on his look now, but on the contrary, his gaze becomes more unfocused. "Obey me, girl," he hisses; although I do not know if a feeble hiss coming from such a pitiful-looking vagabond-look-alike lying sprawled on the floor will threaten her. But with his mustering such a vicious countenance while lying supine at her feet must have at least made a little impact on her psyche, if she truly adores him as I previously believed to be the case.

And I am right, this time, thankfully.

"Yes my lord. I'm sorry, Sir. Won't happen again, Sir," she stammers, wringing her hands together.

He hisses again: angry, exasperated, disgusted, or perhaps irritated – I cannot determine it. My right hands travels down the side of his neck, pats his left shoulder gently, surreptitiously – calm down, calm down, calm down child …

"Would you please fetch me several small basins of water? Clean bandages and towels too, and perhaps you keep medical tools here also somewhere? I would appreciate that," I ask her, cutting at her nervous babbling, hoping Orri will not be too agitated. "Could you please prepare a bath for me as well? I shall choose the salts myself later." Oh, the bath is not meant for me, but she shall not know _anything_ more about me and Orri before I have extracted a long, encompassing oath from her to keep _everything_ she has seen, is seeing, and will see a secret from all the world.

"Yes, good mistress, I shall do so, good mistress," she replies, but her tone, formerly friendly and rather warm, is now distant and even a little cold. She refuses to look at me as well, and when she curtsies to me, it is much shallower – and clearly reluctant – than when she does it to Orri before she leaves. I shrug mentally. As long as she is not – or has not been – trying to poison me or Orri or trying to do us harm by any other means, I can bear a little miscommunication and misunderstanding for now. It will not be pleasant, but I have learnt the hard way a long time ago that things in life is more often unpleasant than not.

Besides, now the real ordeal is going to begin.


	10. 9: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

9. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: none  
Genres: Dark Fluff, Hurt/Comfort  
Word Count: 1,622

Late Afternoon, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Castle, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Four basins: Minnha has just delivered _four_ tiny – a-hand-span-wide – clay wash-basins which look more like bowls, and they are full of cool water! (Where and how did she get water in such a cool temperature? It is nearly the height of summer!) I do not know if she is doing this out of spite for me or ignorance of who the water from these basins is going to be used on, but the fact is that the water is _too cool_ and _too little_ for what I have in mind: bathing Orri's wounds. And worse, I do not dare use my own energy to heat the water in those tiny bowl-like things, for fear of having too little when I should be mending those mangled appendages. (What was he doing anyway to cause such injuries?)

Anger bubbles up in me, forcing up my throat in a torrent of curse-words; but I stifle it as best as I can, ignore it, try to think of a plan to improvise with what I am given. Orri had better not know about what his servant has just done now, when he is so weak and yet so volatile. Minnha must mean well to him, if not to me; she will be in danger from his temper later if he ever knows. (The altercation in the hut is brought to mind … )

Another set of curt knocks on the door. Then it opens, and Minnha comes in, this time bearing a tray of white cloth-strips and two piles of folded towels – one a thick, large towel folded as small as it can go and the other what appear like thin, small towers stacked together on top of each other. Better, this time; perhaps she has suspected that most of these things are going to be applied on her "beloved master"?

People would raise their eyebrows at me if they ever heard me use such a bitterly sarcastic tone … Oh well; but it is just mental words, so I am safe, safe to rant as much and as long as I would like, no? But Orri needs me …

She leaves the tray by the basins that I have arranged just beyond Orri's bird-nest spread of hair, courtsies hastily in general, then leaves the room again without a word, just like before.

Sounds of glass-work clinking and water-related preparation on the far right of where I am sitting – facing the door. She is preparing the bath then, the last order I have given her, partly just to spite her also, now I realise. (What a shame … ) I should think about how to proceed with tackling Orri's present injuries, condition and appearance now … It is _much_ harder to do than when I was just thinking about it though, when I ordered Minnha to fetch these things. I am forgetting something, or maybe several things … but what?

She comes back, tells me that the bath is ready, asks if there is something else she can do. Her tone is colder than before, and I can even detect a rising fury in it. So after all she is not all gentle, timid bones? An interesting specimen of a human being … I wish I would have time to analyse her, to goad her into things and see her reactions, like I often do to many other "interesting" people just out of interest or for the need of "testing the waters." But she may do things that I may later regret very much to me – and perhaps even Orri, if she is driven too far – and I cannot risk that.

Still, there may be something that I can poke her with, figuratively of course, that will both benefit Orri and comply with the urge to lessen his discomfort at the present. I have just managed to think it out …

Squeezing my fingers together behind my back, I say to her, "Would you please fetch me some blankets? Quilts, sheets, coverlets, furs, patchwork – I don't mind. Your master should be more comfortable when I tend to him – and where is the medical kit that I asked you? Don't you have any here?"

Her rigidly aloof demeanour melts away almost completely as she gapes at me: perhaps surprised, or even shocked. Is she suspecting what all these things for, at last? Somehow, I hope not.

"B-blankets, good mistress?" she repeats, stuttering, disbelieving. But she scurries away anyhow on my firm nod, probably to comply with the request. She even forgets to courtsy,, in her hurry.

I stare down at Orri, sighing heavily, as the door clicks close behind her. He looks … displeased: silent but churning with discontentment about something. "What?" I ask. But he refuses – or perhaps he is unable – to answer, just stares back at me with a flat look that belies something far darker and much less simpler than the surface of his gaze suggests.

"What ought I do with you, eh?" I ask him again. It is meant as a rhetorical question actually, just to fill the time and kill the awkward silence between us that I despise.

But he answers anyway, in the same croaky voice as before, although I can detect no displeasure in his tone whatsoever: "Don't leave."

I stare blankly at him. What does he mean? I am going nowhere? …

Oh. Does he think I shall leave him once Minnha has brought in all the supplies? Absurd. Or does he think that I shall leave just for the sheer annoyance of him or his servant? Even weirder …

"Don't leave," he croaks again. I shake my head.

"I am going nowhere, Ori. I'm here, am I not?" I stroke his temple with the tips of my left fingers, as my right hand fidgets with his tunic in indecision. The skin under my fingers is cold and clammy – not good at all – but what should I do with the tunic? I have to prevent the infections from spreading too far and too fast; I have to prevent the high fever that usually ensues after this sympthom; but does he mind losing his present garments to a knife, now? The tunic's sleeves are too long for me to safely and painlessly wiggle out of his arms and mangled hands, for one. And then there is the problem of the trousers and boots …

"Do you mind if I cut off your clothes and boots? I won't be able to treat you with them on, and I won't be able to take them off myself without you shrieking in pain."

A wan smile twitches up the edges of his lips. I give him a reciprocating smile. "Won't," he murmurs, in an almost playful tone. I raise my eyebrows at him to show my incredulity. His smile widens and become a little more genuine. "Maybe," he adds.

I chuckle and tweak the tip of his nose. I just cannot help it. This man that used to be the boy that I knew so much behaves just like _him_ at present, that I give my usual response to this particular type of banter without any thought. The displeasure that I previously noticed has been pushed back even further in his gaze, and bittersweet melancholy replaces it. I am quite sure that it is being reciprocated in some measures in my own look, for I can feel tears clogging up my throat.

"That still doesn't answer it, lad," I tell him, my own voice hoarse. I blink. It is not good, especially since Minnha could be returning any time soon to deliver the supplies I requested. She must not know, not yet perhaps, or not ever.

"Don't care," he whispers. I sigh and rub the pad of my fingers against his left cheek. He leans against it, smiling the same tiny wan smile again.

"I shall try to mend them afterwards," I promise him, ignoring how my heart pangs on beholding and feeling how he reacts to such a small gesture of affection. I used to give Orri _much_ _more_ than _that_. I look away from his bleary eyes and tuck his hair behind his ears, lift his head slightly by supporting up the base of his skull using my thumb and first two fingers, gather the thick, shaggy locks with my right hand, then lower his head onto the palm of my left hand while my right hand arranges his hair and tucks it by his right ear. "What happened to your hair, anyway?" I ask him next, but wince internally. My words sound false and forced: too bright, to flat.

He does not seem to care about it though, or maybe for the state of his hair as well. "Don't care," he mumbles again, as he leans his cheek against my left forearm and closes his eyes, still smiling the same wan smile, looking like a sickly child in the guise of a grown-up.

"Ssh, don't fall asleep." Alarmed, I pat his left cheek gently but rapidly. I do not know yet if he has a concussion; I have not checked it out; and before I do it is unsafe for him to lose consciousness.

His eyes flutter open again, just a little. "Tired," he mumbles, sounding almost like wining to my ears. "Sleepy, Né'a."

_Né'a._

I never thought I would ever hear that again from his lips, not so naturally and so casually uttered at any rate, with all the pride and possessiveness of the boy that-is-no-more. My chest swells with an unidentified emotion that spreads and fills my entire being with warmth, but my heart constricts with a deep, bittersweet ache.

"Let me tend to your head first," I coax him. "You can sleep when it is all finished, all right?"

He utters a grumbling sound deep in his throat, looking a little rebellious. But there is suddenly a soft knocking noise on the heavy door-plank, and then it is swung open after some soft noises of difficulty.


	11. 10: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

10. Alna

Rating: PG-13  
Warnings: graphic descriptions of injuries, nudity and intimacy (unrelated to sexual acts)  
Genres: Dark Fluff, Drama, Hurt/Comfort  
Word Count: 3,644

Dusk, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Minnha enters with her arms laden with piles of various blankets and bearing a large leather pack on her back, so I will never hear what Orri has been about to say. As it is, I retract my hand gently but in the quickest way possible from under his head, and straighten up on my seat on the edge of the rug, looking up at her with expectancy of the requested supplies in my mind.

"Here they are, good mistress," she murmurs, as she crosses the yards that separate the door from where Orri and I are camped.

I stand up and skirt Orri's form and intersect her half-way. "Here," I say, "give them to me. And what is that on your back, child?"

"The Steward says everything one might need to treat ailments or injuries are here," she states in a flat tone as I shift the high, heavy pile of blankets onto my own arms. Then, after an uncomfortable pause and sounding rather grudging, she adds, "Will good mistress be needing something else?"

"No," I say; but my voice is muffled by the pile of blankets. I cannot see either, so I am forced to feel the way with my – thankfully bare – feet. "Please put the pack by the basins then. I shall call for you if I need anything else.".

I drop the pile of blankets on the rug nearby my 'post' and begin to rearrange everything. The contents of the pack is tackled right away just as she lowers it to the floor – large and small strips of bandages wadded in thin rolls and put in an oiled leather sack, needles in various sizes in a small wooden box, spools of cured cotton thread in an oiled leather wallet, alcohol in a transparent glasswork flask, cotton wads jammed in a waxed paper tube, a few glass and stone and wooden and clay containers that emit the smells of medicines, a thinly-padded and velvet-lined wooden box of surgery knives, a small stone burner for portable heating, a tinderbox, a flintstone, jars of salves and ointments and poltices, clean rags in yet another oiled leather sack, a rather large but light metal basin that makes up the base of the pack –

"Child, were you not ordered by your master to wait at the door?" I blurt, looking up, realising that my mind has been telling me that there is still somebody else in the room aside from Orri and I.

"Yes, good mistress." The tone of her voice suggests obedience – reluctant obedience. The midnight blue eyes resting just under her wavy fringes are cold and suspicious and stubborn, however. She retreats to stand by the closed door, but makes no move to exit.

I glare at her. She glares at me right back, suspicious, concerned but not for herself, although I can still see indecision flickering deep in her eyes.

"Were you not told to leave?" I ask in the mildest tone I can muster. Orri may not know about this, however persistent the vengeful part of me is tempting me, tempting to relish what Orri most likely will do to her once he is restored to full health and capacity if he ever knows of her current behaviour to me.

"Yes, good mistress," she says stiffly. I nod.

"Then please leave us," I say. I cannot help it. A clip, rather hostile tone is creeping into my voice. It is a shame, really: the both of us seem to be engaged in a tug-off war with each other with Orri being the prize set on the middle of the rope; and it is … weird, too, when I realise that I, a soon-to-be-four-hundred-year-old – dragonless, but still Dragon Rider, am fighting with a young servant girl who the elves would claim as a baby still, and it is about _my_ son attention and affection as well, with him seeming to have no more portion of both for her than that she is probably his most favourite servant among all.

But how if he _does_ hold both attention and affection for her, just does not wish to show any before me, to placate me perhaps?

Jealousy wars with common sense inside of me.

I feel _pathetic_. I feel angry, envious, a little malicious even, but most of all I feel wretched and ashamed. I have not been there for him all this time, after all, while she has; and she clearly adores him, without any ulterior motive that I can see so far.

I open my mouth, wish to amend my own words, wish to say sorry to her.

But Orri is struggling, scrambling, wriggling to sit up on his elbows, and looking up towards her, and I can sense anger coming out of him in an invisible, hair-raising blast.

Minnha is rooted on her spot by the door, eyes wide and mouth agape. I can see shock and terror plastered starkly on her rapidly-paling countenance now, and my pity for her that was quenched by my intense envy resurfaces again.

"Leave," he utters in the same croaky voice he has only been able to emit thus far, and he even wheezes slightly now, perhaps from the effort of getting up off the floor; but there is a quality to it that makes even my heart quail to hear it.

No wonder that Minnha looks to be pressing her back flat to the wall and cringing now, although her gaze remains frozen in terrified surprise, most probably at Orri's.

"Would you please wait at the door _outside_ of this room?" I repeat my request with a slight emphasis on the word "outside," hoping that she will catch the hint and flee before Orri can do anything else to her right here and now. (Because, even with his body incapacitated, I am sure he still has some energy for a spell or two; and with the dragon-flesh poisoning affecting him, I do not know – cannot guess – what he is going to do next.) And meanwhile, I use both of my hands and my right knee to force him back to a lying-down position, which is severely impeded with him struggling fiercely against all motions that I am trying to execute.

"Orri, _please_," I plead at last, hissing into his ear. I cannot put any more strength behind my movements or I shall injure him further.

He ignores it.

"Minnha, _please_, _leave_." I resort to pleading at the dread-rooted girl by the door in the very end, ready to use magic to propel her out of the door if she does not budge.

But she does, and I cannot be more relieved. I watch her yank open the door and dash out and jerk it close before I dare to relax ever so slightly.

Orri is growling like an enraged lion ready to attack, but I act as if I were ignoring it. (I am cringing inwardly, however, as the growl could be very well directed towards me, not only to poor Minnha.) But at least he complies to my gentle shoves now and lies back down on the floor in seeming surrender. So I release him and instead hunt around for a small-enough cushion to pillow his head during most of the treatment procedure I am going to apply on him, and also larger cushions for his feet for the same reason so that his lower body will be elevated slightly in contrast to his upper body, then rags to blanket them so the silk will not be too dirty to wash clean later.

Rustling clothes nearby, grunts of pain – I look up from the makeshift pillows I have just made. Before, I have only heard his soft, heavy panting, but now that I _see_ him, I realise that he has been trying to actually get up completely from the floor, and right now he has managed to stand swaying on his knees.

My throat reverberates with a growl that originates deep in my chest. That _stubborn_ _fool_! To think that he always teased and mocked and taunted Brom as a stubborn fool – they are both the same, to me.

I put the smaller cushion on the section of the floor where his head has been with more force than necessary, actually feeling pleased when it creates a dull slapping sound. Then, without alerting him by any means, I tackle him from behind: I swipe at the back of his knees with my right foot, catch him in both arms as he falls backwards, pin his arms at his sides, force him to lie down by lying partially atop him myself. He screams as I do so, and wails when his hands strike the floor, just a little harder than a gentle tap.

Silence rings in the too-vast chamber. I freeze, staring wide-eyed at his stark-white, contorted face and squeezed-shut eyes. Horror takes over me for I-do-not-know-how-long.

The slight unclenching of his facial muscles stirs me, returns me to awareness and the task I should be doing. So, sighing with exhaustion that I feel more mentally than physically and murmuring an apology to him, I right up the position and arrangement of his head and hair on the makeshift pillow and move on my knees to his legs, which have been bent sidewise as a result of the partial success I got with tackling him from behind.

I lift his right leg a little, then bend it even more, resting the booted foot on a rag I have just hastily spread on the rug. Then I move to the left leg which is now free of burden and obstacle and lift it up.

He cries out again. I wince, creating an even-more-jarring motion, and he _yips_. He never uttered such a sound if the pain was not on the level of unbearable agony, like when he broke his legs badly falling from the stairs in the Citadel of Ilirea when he was ten, and I was forced to set it right there and then because of the profuse bleeding without the aid of neither magic nor anaesthetic.

But, like in that horrifying, traumatic situation then, I cannot stop now for fear of worsening the injuries that has been left untreated and contaminated for who-knows-how-long.

"I'm sorry," I murmur to him, just slightly above his loud, ragged, laboured panting. And then I move his left leg off the floor, straighten it up, and deposit it back on the floor on its former spot.

The silence is _deafening_ now. I cannot even hear Orri breathing.

Cannot hear him breathe …

Danger alarms blare in my head. Orri is not _breathing_!

I yank another rag from the haphazard pile of it by the towels on the rug and dip it into one of the basins. The cool water has its benefit now …

"Please please please wake up," I murmur frantically as I wipe at his face with the cool-water-sodden rag. Tears of hysteria are bubbling up my chest, bubbling up my throat, ready to be unleashed. Treating your own virtual flesh-and-blood has turned out to be _much_ harder than I ever thought when peacetime was abound, and I find myself humbled by the realisation. Someday such arrogance might mean the death of another person in the ever-dwindling number of my family members, and I _cannot_ allow it to happen. Witless, brainless Alna.

His eyes flutter open, and he gasps in a breath. I release a relieved sigh and slump forward a little, staring at his stark-white countenance now turned slightly pink by the cool water, stifling a sob that has been trying to go past the back of my throat. "I'm sorry, Orri. I couldn't help it," I tell him, hating myself for it all the while. "Could you be patient for a little longer? Just until I manage to release you from those boots?" My anger at his stubbornness and recklessness is gone on the face of my dread for his life and well-being, and I hope he realises that.

But the pinkish tinge to his cheeks and the tip of his nose has vanished on my words, and his visage now is as white as a chalkstone slab. He closes his eyes again, screwing his eyelids shut, and lets out a whimpering grunt, sounding almost like a plaintive plea.

He does not understand, does not realise that I _never_ meant – never mean – to retaliate against him, to punish him in this manner – such a cruel, heartless manner.

But I force my mind to take the reaction as a "Yes." There is not yet any time for explanations now.

I shift his right leg back to its former spot by his left leg, holding my breath all the while, then I take the largest surgery knife from the box of the surgery kit and begin to cut slowly at the left boot, positioning myself on the stone floor for ease and precision of the work. I cannot work on cutting away the boot without moving his foot ever so slightly however, and I cannot stopper my ears against the plaintive sounds of pain that he makes also. I can barely hold the knife without it shaking in my grasp as it is.

When the slashed and diced boot at last clutters onto the floor, I can only … freeze, for I do not know how long, staring at the horrible, nauseating sight before me.

There is no single toe left unbroken, it seems, and there is no single toenail left on any of them, leaving gaps darkened by congealed blood. The foot is also far larger than it is supposed to be, mottled in the shape of the boot which it has just been released from, and blackened with dead blood. The ankle is twisted farther than a sprain would suggest in this matter, which means it is either broken or dislocated or both. The back of the foot, even despite of the horrible swelling, is also arched more than normal, which suggests a thorough break, which I deemed was near impossible when I studied about human bones back then. And blisters covers the sole of the foot, breaking and colouring the skin further.

I gag. I probably would not react so if this sight belonged to another person's foot; but this is _my_ _son's_. No wonder he lost consciousness when his left leg was moved!

With terrible apprehension, I move back onto the rug and examine the right boot, which is still encasing his right foot. What is hidden underneath it? It looks less tattered and worn than the left boot was, and Orri did not complain overmuch when I moved it, but these signs can mean many things.

I sigh and, pleading to the Creator for my endurance and Orri's, begin to work again, releasing the right foot from the constraints of the boot.

At first, when the foot is finally free, I do not dare look at what the nerve-racking, tideous work has revealed. But morbid curiosity goes against my quailing heart, and I look.

Thankfully, this time it is not as severe as the other: The foot is sound enough, even though the sole of it is covered with more, worse blisters than the other is. The ankle is just sprained, although rather horribly at that and swollen nearly as much as the other – entire – foot is; but I can see no breakage on neither his toes nor the back of his foot,.

I sigh with cold relief and put one of the two larger rag-wrapped cushions under it. I am not about to put a cushion under a foot that bears a broken or dislocated ankle, so I leave the left foot unpadded. It would create just more unnecessary pain for him if I did so. And perhaps, I can use the other cushion I have prepared for a more useful purpose.

I shove the stripped pieces of the boots out of the way, then return to my former spot and begin to work cutting away his tunic, in order to see if he bears more wounds or not on his torso and abdomen. Bile cuts at my airway when the fabric flutters aside, swiped away by the knife, and reveals the front of his body.

The right side of his ribs is blackened where I hit him during our three-way altercation in my hut in Lanstream Village.

I did _that_ to _my_ own _child_.

"I'm sorry for this." I whisper, tracing the bruise with the tip of my index finger. He groans in pain. I bite my lip, hard, wanting to hurt myself, wanting to just …

… transfer the pain to me …

It is possible. I did that several times already, when he was younger. Most healers do not condone such a method for various reasons, but I never agree with them. I only ever did it to my family members anyhow. And this man – young man, to me – is _still_ my family member, one of my most cherished among that ragtag band of people, actually.

Later, I shall do that later, without his permission if necessary. I shall just transfer the pain to me, without transferring the injury. Then I shall be able to work without too much impedimence.

Pursing my lips tightly together, I wrench my sight from the bruise to other parts of his torso and abdomen. My heart twinges when I discover a deeper bruise with broken skin above his stomach, the place where Nalyar hit him after I called out his nickname to him. "I'm sorry," I whisper again, tracing the bruise even more gingerly than before.

He whimpers in stifled agony. I force the bile back down to my stomach, even as more is trying to come up.

"Shall we proceed?" I ask him. No answer.

"Do you mind?" I ask again, looking right at him this time, while my right hand rests on the top of his trousers.

He just looks back at me unwaveringly, almost relaxed, with no thought nor emotion flashing in his pain-blurred eyes. Coming from him, especially when I am about to strip him naked, might just as well mean "Yes." So I just do so: cut away at his trousers.

I carefully watch his countenance again afterwards, trying to find any slightest hint of discomfort or hostility, which will mean that I have crossed into a personal bubble that nobody should ever enter. Half of the members of my family have ever been naked before me on several occasions and because of various reasons; and given that he was my nursling, I took care of his needs and helped him with many things since his babyhood; but it may have changed now, after the Fall and after he has been living alone for so long.

But his countenance is still as stoic as before. And judging from how his eyes are fluttering close again and the dimming of his awareness to my senses, he is slipping away.

I pat his cheek a little roughly. "Hey hey hey," I murmur to him. "Who says you can sleep now?" It was a phrase I often used, that I still use sometimes; but now it feels … wrong, different. And judging from his reaction – his eyes flying open in terror and his relaxed expression turning rigid – I have indeed made a mistake in choosing my words.

Later, later, I shall inquire about it later. But now I have to concentrate on actually healing him, which is not going to be an easy work to do.

"Sorry," I say. "I didn't know. I'm sorry if I said something you wouldn't like to hear; but you do need to be awake for a little longer, Orri. Please?"

He just closes his eyes again. But given that his expression only relaxes slightly instead of completely, I take it as his acquiescence and proceed to observe signs of physical or internal wounds on the parts of his lower body.

I find a small fracture on his left shin, as I run a hand along the area and hear Orri yelps in pain. I find a large but not-so-concerning bruise on his right shin, and more bruises and little cuts – as if he fell several times already before those guards brought him in here – on his knees. I find more bruises on his thighs, hips, lower abdomen, and even his genitals, and wonder if he has enraged a woman so much that she would do such a thing. (Because surely another man would not kick at a fellow male's genitals, knowing of the pain?) I just … refuse the possibility that Nalyar may have been _that_ woman. Surely she would not hurt somebody that she knew means so much to me that much?

I shake my head and return to my post by the side of Orri's upper body. Speculations will bring me nowhere. And now it is really time for the next, most difficult part of the ordeal, or his injuries will most assuredly be worse and possibly even fatal.

"You are too injured for me to use my energy alone, especially if it turns out that you are suffering from any degree of concussion," I tell him frankly. "I'm quite curious of how you got it." I give him a half-hearted glare alongside the firm tone I used to give him when I had to discipline him. "But it is for another time. Now, do you have any idea of how I can have a ready source of energy should I need it? I shall only borrow it for a while."

His eyes remain closed. His expression remains semi-relaxed. But his words, uttered to me mind-to-mind, make my eyelids fly open wide in shock and disbelief alongside my lips and expression.


	12. 11: Morzan

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

11. Morzan

Rating: Soft-R  
Warnings: confusion, fractured thinking, mild mature themes, nudity and intimacy (unrelated to sexual acts), vulgar thoughts and facts  
Genres: Dark Fluff, Hurt/Comfort  
Word Count: 2,796

Dusk, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

I did _it_. I _told_ _her_, revealed _them_ to someone not of the fourteen that are now left. What will Rainya Tor do to me, foster kinship regardless, if he ever knows, I do not dare to even imagine. But we need _them_; Né'a needs them to heal me, and I need them to prevent her from exhausting herself to death. It would be the bitterest irony if I got her back and she were dead trying to heal me. Besides, she is going nowhere, is she?

Né'a leaves my side. I cannot see what she is doing, but I can hear her murmuring voice afar and then the clacking noise of a padded something against wood. Is she retrieving them from the hideout that I made for them? Or is she preparing to kill me? It would be a most shameful and bitter death, lying naked and submissive on the cold, hard floor while one's own mother stabs a knife right on the heart …

So cold, so cold … It is like being soaked in an icy pond. Né'a requested for blankets, did she not? So cold … please end it …

A warm hand grasps at my upper arm lightly – but too suddenly for my comfort. I would flinch if I could.

A female gasp somewhere nearby. Né'a, must be she, nobody else. Told Minnha to leave, that girl … I shall deal with her when I am well once more.

Feel nothing on my left leg. Strange, but welcome. Must be Né'a's doing. Good, so good, Né'a, I like it. Not so cold anymore too. Energy running in my veins, familiar-but-welcome energy, soothing, strengthening, warming me up; no agitation, no wildness, no rage, no burning pain. Thank you, Nä'a, thank you …

A smallish hand on my left temple. Weird lightness inside my head, but warm and soothing and feels almost like a gentle caress.

Feel nothing under me, no cold, hard floor, just warm summer air. Back onto a surface again, but softer, more yielding, and _warm_. Blankets? But how can even a pile of them be warm when the stone floor is so near and so cool and there is no fire around to heat them up?

Magic, must be magic. You ought not use your energy for frivolous things, Né'a. Why are you doing so? My discomfort means nothing if you are dead anyway even with their aid, and probably Rainya Tor will devise a cruel torment for me for revealing the fact about them before I am allowed to die. But so warm, so warm, so comfortable …

`_Orri?_` I hear her in my head, I feel her consciousness embracing me, her sorrow flowing into me. Pain sapped even the strength to speak from me at last, so I contacted her mind-to-mind and told her about _them_, just before my strength failed me totally and I could not do even that, and perhaps now she assumes I have given her permission to access my mind.

Well, I would not mind anyway, except if she routes around for things that she should not know …

Amusement flows into my own mind, coming from her. Horror and embarrassment fills me. She _heard_ that!

A soft mental laugh. `_Don't you mind that, Little Green. Or do you think I care that much about politics?_`

Little Green. _Little Green_. I was nicknamed that when I was small, yes, and even most of my teenage years, and sometimes still even past my adulthood. I loved green so much that I wore and had nearly everything in green, despite people telling me I looked funny in green. _All_ in my family bore something green in them or their characteristics, so I loved green – and I _do_ still.

I lean into the mental hug at last, melt away into passive rest folded within her presence, uncaring, unheeding, just wish to be relaxed for once.

`_Little Green?_` she is saying again. I hum in contentment. No pain, no ache, no tiredness. All away, away, away …

Away where?

`_Né'a?_` I ask, dreading the answer. `_What is Né'a doing?_`

`_Hush,_` she whispers, but now I can at last feel the pain she has been hiding from me, the assortment of throbbing, piercing, burning, stinging, twisting pains that I endured just moments ago.

`_Né'a!_` I shout: alarmed, angry, afraid, concerned, betrayed.

`_Hush hush,_` she murmurs again, enfolding me deeper into her mental arms. I struggle, want to be free, to yell some more at her, to return all the pains back to myself, to take her pains instead, to taunt her as a stubborn fool for this daring act –

`_Hush hush, son. Hush. I didn't take much, just enough so you won't be too pained,_` she whispers to me, cradling me in her mental embrace. A warm, shaky hand wipes at my eyes and cheeks with bare skin; Né'a's, not mine, I can smell her scent. Am I weeping? Why? `_I did it several times already, remember? So you oughtn't worry,_` she coaxes me. I resume struggling, somehow more angry with her because of this latest statement so blithely uttered.

`_Lost Né'a, remember? Don't want to lose Né'a again, and just for a stupid thing like that too._` I do not like how shrill and needy I sound in my own mind; but it is very hard, too hard, to dissemble with one's own mind.

She sighs. I am hit by a multitude of emotions. I cringe away, but she does not let me go. Her demeanour afterwards becomes a little more distant, a little more unfeeling, and it hurts me, and I cannot hide it from her – what a shame! – and she is talking, explaining things that are probably going to be done on me, but I cannot – would not – understand.

I shut her out.

She leaves.

Something soft and just as warm is spread on my body, feeling smooth and light: a sheet perhaps. But my head and right arm is out. No mind with the head; She gave me a pillow –

She _tackled_ me! She attacked me from behind just before I was about to give Minnha a lesson she would not –

Stinging sensation on my right hand, grasped around the forearm by a smallish hand and rested on something soft. The sound of trickling water. Burning pain dappled in some places around my right hand, the sharp clean smell of alcohol in the air, mixed with the bittersweet scent of blood and the gag-inducing odor of pus. Warm water, soft cloth dabbed along my hand, little massaging motions of smallish fingers, the soft cloth again.

`_I am going to set your bones back. I won't be able to reduce the pain when I do so,_` she says, intruding into my mind again. She feels … uneasy … concerned?

`_Don't care,_` I reply curtly. Why should I? `_Né'a's going to do things Né'a's way anyway._` Has she not realised that she is just as stubborn as she often claims me to be? I am her son, after all; she raised me, she and Ré'a did, in quite an intimate manner that I would not be able to help not taking some of their characteristics as my own.

It hurts her. My words hurt her. I want to apologise, but she is already gone, back into her own mind, and the smallish hand lies flush against the very edge of my own right hand – _Aaaargghhh! Pain pain pain pain pain pain_ … Sharp pain, burning pain, squeezing pain, pulling pain – an invisible something is warping, twisting my hand without my consent, without warning, without –

Where is the pain?

It is numb now. Where is the pain? It was so intense …

Familiar consciousness. Né'a is back. `_Should I put a gag on you?_` she offers. `_I doubt Minnha didn't hear your wailing just now. I don't want her barging on us._` She sounds tired, frayed, ragged, wretched, and my scream – which I hear myself now at last – echoes in her haunted mind, as if an evil ghost in those silly tales were chasing after her.

I lift my right hand tentatively from what I now realise as a cushion put upon her lap. No pain: good. I raise it higher, blindly, searchingly – a smallish hand catches it in the air. `_Orri?_` She is uncertain, does not know what I wish to do, what I wish to have.

I tug my hand free from hers with all my might. It hits something yielding and a little bony, slides down along a silken something – blouse?

I curl my fingers into themselves just as tentatively. No pain, just stiff: surprising. Tug at the silken something. Want that. Want to smell her scent. Want her to be near when I am in pain. Never had that luxury after the old order crumbled. Want that again. Want her. Want that thing that is so near to her, which should have been me. Tug again. Want that, I want that, Né'a …

`_Orri?_` She sounds in my head again. `_What are you doing?_` Confused, uncertain, apprehensive – why ought she be afraid at her own son? To think that I used to be afraid of her on many occasions! She ought not; it is wrong; I just want that … Why ought she be afraid? I am laid bare before her by her; why ought she be ashamed to do so herself? I just want that thing …

`_Né'a, Né'a, want Né'a. That, that one._` I cannot tell her with words, somehow. I just want _that_! What is so hard about it? She stripped me naked and I allowed it; I did not mind. Why does she now? I shall not be able to see her anyway – I cannot anyway. Why would she be afraid or ashamed to be looked upon by her own son anyhow? I drank _right from_ her _nipples_ once!

My hand is put gently but firmly on the cushion, left there empty. I raise it back, tug again at the thing. Sharp sound of female exasperation; I do not care. Want that. Not a baby to be passified so easily. Want _that_.

She shifts, getting away from my hand. I cry out. _Why?_

Something light and soft and smooth fills the palm of my hand, overflowing, feeling like … like _that_.

`_Satisfied now?_` she snorts, but now she is less afraid, less uncomfortable, less certain, even a little playful. `_Please don't tear it apart, all right? I have no wish to explain to Minnha why I ruined a pretty shirt supplied by her own kind master._` Sour sarcasm laces her mental voice, but there is no real malice in it.

I frown mentally, and perhaps also physically. `_Minnha?_` I repeat. But she does not answer. She has left me _again_.

Her scent on my nose. The thing on my face. My hand is guided to grasp at the silken something – she said a shirt? Or a tunic perhaps? – squeezed, then the smallish hand is also gone.

Stinging sensation on my left hand now, grasped around the forearm by a smallish hand and rested on something soft. The sound of trickling water. Burning pain dappled in some places around my left hand, the sharp clean smell of alcohol in the air, mixed with the bittersweet scent of blood and the gag-inducing odor of pus. Warm water, soft cloth dabbed along my hand, little massaging motions of smallish fingers, the soft cloth again.

I know to expect the pain now. She contacts me, but I snap at her before she can say anything, too daunted by the pain not to blame it on her: `_I know._`

She is gone just as abruptly as my words have been. Guilt stings me.

And then my world is awash in various kinds of pain _again_.

I am tired, tired, tired of all the pain – no – _pain pain pain pain pain_ – what is she working at? _Awww! Paaaiiiinnn_ …

Flee – flee – I want to _flee_, want to run away, leave the – _pain pain pain!_ – What is she doing? I have to run away, run away, run away from her – she is _mad_! – no no no no _pain pain pain paaiiiin!_ …

Her scent in my nose. My hand grips something, something of _hers_, has it, will not let go. Grip it tighter, good pain now, not like – _awwwwhh_!

Shift against fabrics, rustle, struggle – _pain pain pain pain pain!_ – leg, leg is burning – _PAAAIIINN_ …

Throat is clogged up, pain there also, but from the inside. Too raw, cannot scream. Do not have the strength to do anything, not any longer. Cannot breathe well. Choke on something – water? Tears? No, must not be tears. Warm, sticky wetness around my hips back and front. What is going on? – But cannot care less; too much agony.

Press the silken something closer to my nose. Breathe in – try, anyway – choke again. My body feels so stiff, so numb, so achy … Eyes too warm, to wet, too heavy. Choked breaths forced out of my airway. Cheeks wet. Not good, not good.

Hands on my head, caressing, stroking, pulling at the silken something – _no no no no no no no_! Mine! Mine! _Mine_!

"Orri, please." A female voice breathes into my left ear: wavering, choked with emotions; pained too?

Tugs again. I do not let go. `_NO!_`

The hands let go abruptly. A dull thud. A female gasp.

I let go of the silken something. Né'a? Is that Né'a? Is she hurting?

`_Orri, I'm sorry, I was just quite angry at you. I'm sorry, child, I'm sorry. I just lost my composure and my mind – I'm sorry – I'm sorry – I'm sorry – I ought not do that! I should have – _` I rarely heard her babble like this, with such frenzy and overflow of churning emotions and a blown-over hysteria, although people said it is part of why she was called "the wild girl."

`_What did Né'a do?_` I ask her at last, as she falls silent: timid, afraid to find the answer, the truth. I have an idea of what she did to me, but I … just … I do not know. I have no more emotion, no more thought left. I … I just want to rest, just want to sleep it away, wake up curled up in between Né'a and Ré'a again, ready for yet another tideous day with the books and Rainya Tor's and Narí's projects spied on by Lifaen. This is just a dream, a horrible dream.

But she tells me. `_I was so angry. I healed most of your wounds at once, except for your left foot. If you were not sobbing your eyes out and screaming on the top of your lungs and soiling yourself and writhing like a sunburnt worm like that, I might have proceeded with your left foot._` Quiet, truthful, self-hating, self-disgust, horrified.

But I just feel … numb. I cannot – do not wish to – feel anything, cannot hold on to any thought but the desire to forget it all, to rest, to sleep, not to respond to anything. Hurt, Né'a, hurt so much. Orri is just so tired, feels so filthy, so low – just want to go to sleep. Please stop?

I return the silken something to my nose and try to breathe the scent in. But it is fading, fading fast, replaced with my own scent: sweat and tears and saliva, fear and pain and helplessness. I shudder. Not this too! Do not leave me!

A keening sound – is it mine?

`_Child, please … _` I can hear tears in her voice. Is she, then?

`_It is you._` Her mental voice is even quieter now. But no no, I cannot believe it, I shall not believe it – but –

`_Please, child, hush, hush … I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But we need to undergo that just for a little bit longer. Please?_` Why is she pleading at me? What am I doing? What did I do? Cannot remember, cannot think …

A mental sigh, a physical sigh. A hand slips to underneath the silken something, strokes the bridge of my nose, thumb resting right under my nostrils.

Breathe in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out – there is nearly the same things there in the scent, _her_ scent, but I do not mind, I do not care. I have gotten her back.

But it leaves me …

Something brushes at the side of my head, then it too goes away.

`_You can sniff me all you want later, I promise you._` Her mental voice returns to me, before it is too gone.

I am _alone_, alone _again_.

And then agony, and numb, silent darkness.


	13. 12: Morzan

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

12. Morzan

Rating: G  
Warnings: filler chapter, nudity and intimacy (unrelated to sexual acts)  
Genres: Fluff  
Word Count: 1,197

Early Evening, Day 22 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Bathroom at Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Warm.

Wet.

Warm and wet.

Warm and wet and comfortable and familiar, so familiar.

Trickling. Soft splashing. Bubbling. Eddying. Rippling.

Hands on my body, smallish hands with slippery soft substance – lathering it seems, rubbing, massaging, making waves in the … water?

A hand rubs at my face, bringing water with it and the scent of … pine trees …

My eyes fly open wide. A familiar female chuckling nearby. I look up.

Né'a?

With the scent of pine needles so thick in the air, I cannot determine if it is really Né'a who is here, who is touching me so intimately. But the hands feel like hers …

"Can you not recognise me by sight after all the years?" Ah yes, it is truly _she_. I recognise her voice, her playful tone. But why does she look different now?

"You don't look like my né'a," I say – croak – almost jokingly. But at the same time I curl up into a fetal position away from her hands. She looks and smells like a stranger! Wavy, brownish blonde hair, turquoise almond-shaped eyes, high cheek-bones, brown-toned skin – not _my_ _né'a_.

"Ah," she murmurs, retreating a little ways away from the bath-tub. "I'm sorry, dear. I changed a few features to fool the servants. I am still me." On my wary watch, she closes her eyes and seem to concentrate. Her hair and facial features shift as if sand in the desert or ripples in the calm water. And then she opens her eyes again, staring back at me.

Round, bright-green eyes: Né'a's, yes. Short, straight, thick warm-brown hair. Round cheek-bones, light-golden skin, small nose that I loved to kiss – hers, all right.

She approaches the bath-tub once more. I shift backwards, press my back and behind to the far corner of the vast marble basin. She freezes, looking sad and baffled. But people – accomplished spellcasters – can shift their features easily enough! That does not mean she is my mother in truth.

I am scared, angry, nauseated, ashamed, feeling so foolish –

A smallish hand waves a little two hand-span away from my nose: an invitation to sniff, as if she knows that my best sense is that of smell …

I look at her warily, then inch forward a little, leaning over towards the hand. Grasp the hand, press nose to the finger-pads, to the valleys between the fingers, to the back of the hand – pine-needle smell, still, but now I catch an underlying scent that belongs to the past where it meant comfort and contentment and safety and confidence and home and well-being.

I pull the hand to me, rest it on my shoulder, lean forward even more, pull her towards me. She laughs, looks relieved, looks happy, leans forward, puts the other hand on my right shoulder. "You believe me now?" she chuckles, although I can tell that there is an underlying sense of uncertainty and hurt in her tone.

I smile regardless, relieved as well, warm, glad. Put my head on her shift-clad shoulder. It is wet now; I do not care though. She does not appear to care as well. She laughs as I sniff her neck, searching for more evidence of the scent I craved so much all these years – _decades_.

"You still need a bath, you know." She tweaks the tip of my left ear with a finger. "After that it is my turn, and then we can rest."

She pushes me back fully into the water by my shoulders, then brandishes a soapy, sodden spunge playfully from inside the water by my legs. "Orri doesn't like that," I complain, glare at the spunge, shift away from it. But she catches me, chuckles again, grins at me.

"I know. But you are too filthy for just some soap. You need it," she says. Then she attacks me with the spunge. I yelp and squirm and try to wriggle away, laughing too, but she always gets me. Water splashing, spraying, eddying, rippling, bubbling – so happy, so carefree, so light, after years – _decades_ – of grim fights and cold loneliness and mistrust against backstabbing treachery.

Giddying; overwhelming, but not in a bad way; poinient joy that stings my eyes and chokes my throat. So sharp, intense, indescribable.

Water down my hair, down my face. Hands in my hair, rubbing, scratching, combing, massaging, so comfortable. Crooning in my ear, sad but so happy, just like me. Hands wipe just below my eyes, and she whispers, "Hush hush, Little Green. It's all right now. It's all right now. We are together again, are we not?"

A promise. She _promises_. I keep it. She must keep it.

My head is tilted back. Warm water runs down my scalp, rushing and splashing. So familiar, so comfortable. Pine's scent, Né'a's scent, warm-water's scent.

My head is tilted sidewise. I lean my body sidewise instead, curling up in the bubbly water, leaning against the cool, hard, damp side of the tub, close to the owner of the hands that are trying to coax my head farther back into the tub to probably finish rincing the soap. I grin and duck and dodge the hands with as little movement as possible, just to aggrevate her, just to play for once without any mask or responsibilities. I can easily imagine that I am looking silly and mischievous now, a little boy in the guise of a man.

But it is good and relieving to be just a little boy for once. No power, little freedom in the sense that most would think, little appreciation; but free to behave, free of responsibilities, free of masks, free of expectations, just be oneself. It is not good and enjoyable to be a so-called powerful man most of the times, especially a _hated_ and _scorned_ and _hunted_ man who is forced to live alone and desperately and in fear for his life night and day, meanest than the meanest of beggers in Dras Leona.

It is good to be a little _son_ sometimes, to behave and be acknowledged as one; good to forget that most of one's family members are either dead or twisted-beyond-recognition or thirsty of one's blood – in the figurative or literal sense. It is good to _belong_, to _claim_ kinship when so few would even interact with me as a not-so-special human being.

I yawn. She laughs. "Sleep then," she offers. "I shall catch you if you fall. You shan't drown."

Another promise. She _promises_. I blink back the content sleepiness that is shrouding my mind and muscles and look up at her, into her eyes, round things that remind me of young emeralds under the morning sunlight. She nods solemnly.

We _know_. It is beyond here and now, beyond this place, beyond this time perhaps, even: She keeps her promises, I keep my promises: We are _together_, I shall be safe, _she_ shall be safe as well if it means that I am not.

I give her a small smile and close my eyes. She has found the thing that has been tempting me the most and goaded me into falling into it; but it is all right; she is my mother.

And then _blissful_ oblivion.


	14. 13: Morzan

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: eärillë

13. Morzan

Rating: PG  
Warnings: madness, vicious thoughts and actions  
Genres: Action, Dark Fluff  
Word Count: 1,439

Pre-Dawn, Day 23 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine;  
Banquet Hall at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

So silent, peaceful, comfortable; soft too, warm and filled with a familiar, intimate scent and also that of pine needles.

I snuggle deeper, clutching a soft surface, listening to a "dug, rush, dug, rush, dug, rush, dug, rush" sound and feeling small vibrations and contracting movements alongside it: so entrancing, lulling.

Noises of movements outside. People yelling at each other, so loud in the peaceful, profound silence. I scowl. Who dare disturb me? Nobody is allowed to be any close to _my_ wing for a _reason_!

I shift, freeze, shift again. I have just realised it: I have been sleeping curled around Né'a, resting my head on her chest and throwing my arms and legs around her body with all the possessiveness of an only child that I was before Árnoth and Ídeith filled our lives less than a decade before all the horrors began. She does not stir. Her breaths are deep and a little ponderous. Must be sound asleep, and because of exhaustion.

I shift again, detangle myself from her arms with bone-deep reluctance. Here ends the bliss –

Louder yelling. Sounds of footsteps approaching the door.

– And it is _all_ because of _them_.

A lone candle is burning on the edge of the desk, beside a tray of half-eaten meal. The wavering, soft light makes Né'a's countenance even more tired than I have assumed by listening to the pattern of her breathing and the beating of her heart, more sickly.

And they are disturbing _her_, disturbing _me_: those belligerent, ignorant, air-headed, loud-mouthed _fools_. Or are they hoping to catch me unawares, to stab me – us – while we are asleep, like how some people have tried on Barst and Glaerun?

I shift off the blanket, leap off the bed onto the rug, search around wildly for any weapon that can be used. Even if I no longer breathe, Né'a is going to be safe. She must have expended more energy than it is safe when she was taking care of me: that stubborn, foolish mother of mine. Now is the time to repay her in some measure. Well, and I have been meaning to confront Minnha about her disobedience earlier also. _She_ must obey her; _they_ all must obey her, because I am not going to be here often, and she is the mistress of the home while I am gone.

I route around the rug in search of my sword. The commosion is getting louder and closer. Clumsy hands make accidental taps on the door: a struggle, an argument of who should open the door perhaps.

My throat vibrates with a low growl from deep in my chest, deep in my heart. They _dare_!

I lock the door with magic to buy myself more time and wrap the bed in a shroud of silence to prevent Né'a from waking up from all the racket. Now where is that wretched sword? Né'a would not let any other person handle my things, I believe, and she would likely hide my sword and dagger somewhere during my lapses of consciousness, in order for me not to go "gallivanting off" somewhere without her knowing of why I was injured in the first place.

I grin savagely, or perhaps sneer. No, she will not get the truth – full or half – any time soon. Let me bear it myself. Aiedail ought not be tainted or darkened, and she shall remain so _forever_.

And after more than a century and a half of a close-knit family lifestyle and snooping and quiet pranks on all the family members, I have a good idea on where she has most likely hidden my sword and the dagger that I always keep in my right boot: in the unlikeliest place to store them.

Grinning even wider and baring my teeth to the cool, damp air of pre-dawn atmosphere, I stalk towards the bathroom. The second place I shall search if I do not find it there is going to be inside the wardrobe – no no, the bookshelf – since my desk-drawers are locked with blood-keys and lick-passwords, and I doubt she ever went out before or after I was brought in. Barely hurt now, just a little tired, guess my body is telling me I am still recovering even though everything is essentially healed; but I cannot stop, cannot let them do _this_ to me and Né'a and ruin everything that I have been – that we have been – striving for.

Scrabbling on the door. Guess they have found that it is locked from inside now. I scowl, growl, break into a jog, thrust out my right hand and spit out a command for a sun-like werelight.

Damp smell, faintly pine-scented, Né'a-scented, me-scented: the bathroom.

Alarmed noises outside the door, more scrabbling, more frantic, no sign of internal dispute now. Not good.

Look around wildly. Sword sword sword sword – red red red red –

A dim red glint on the far corner, dipped in shadows, vertical against the forest-green-tiled wall. Aha!

Sword, at last! And the dagger is propped up behind it too, leaning against the wall. Not so clever now, are we?

Rush out, extinguish the werelight, straight to the door, grasp the dagger in my left hand ready to thrust out, grip the red, red sword with my right hand ready to slash. They will _pay_.

Stand a pace out of the range of the door-panel, release the magic-lock.

The door opens, swings inward violently, abruptly. People tumble in, clanking and yammering and screaming and scrambling.

Pathetic.

I slash out with my sword and dagger.

They yelp, tumble down on top of each other again, screeching like a bunch of fanghaur and lethrblaka put together.

Glad I put the shroud of silence around the bed before this lousy pigs barged in. They shriek like slaughtered hogs!

And some do look like them now, with clothes torn and bleeding a little; just a little, good red, good pain, feel how angry I am, feel how _displeased_ I am with _them_.

I throw them out of the door with a burst of magic, ignoring how I sway alarmingly even as the energy leaves me. Need to get rid of them for now, need to calm down a little, or I will be truly slaughtering them. Cannot afford that, still need those fools sadly, and they were good before this, loyal and obedient.

Slam the door shut, toss sword and dagger onto the stone floor (Master Oromis would be mad at me if he caught me do this to my weapons; but he is not here; I can do whatever I want) and rummage in the wardrobe for some faelnirv.

I _do_ hide things in unexpected places as well.

Ah, find it. Good. Need the boost of energy.

Leave the flask on the rug, rush to the door, jerk it open, use my sword as both shield and weapon against possible attack –

But they are _nowhere_ in sight.

I am _angry_.

They are _all_ _cowards_.

They have _cheated_ against me, no fair fight, fair recompense.

Not-my-blood wakes up, rushes, branches down and up and to the sides from my chest. Pounding, rushing, ringing in my ears. _Vengeance_. I must have my _revenge_. They must _pay_.

Pay for – ?

No, just _pay_.

Just dimly aware: bare feet pounding on the stone floor: cold, stinging, burning. No mind, no mind, so hot otherwise: wild energy, wild strength, not-my-energy, not-my-strength from not-my-blood.

Wrong, it is wrong, so wrong – no, need it, must have my retribution, vengeance – they cannot – they _did_ – they _do_ – what?

Banquet hall. Remember something about banquet hall. Can search from there. New motivation, new drive, new plan, renewed desire –

An obstacle before me just after a dull thump on the floor. An old, female cry: begging, pleading, _pathetic_.

Familiar though … a little familiar …

Dull grass-green eyes swimming into view, coated with water, flickering with water.

_Obstacle_.

No, familiar, must not hurt _her_.

Must set the obstacle aside.

I do.

Wailing. _Annoying_. I turn around.

Dull grass-green eyes: pleading. Old female voice coughing, choking, wheezing – cannot breathe – I cannot breathe myself.

Ice all over my being. Sight clears, mind clears, ears clear.

Ezeva.

And I _promised_ I would protect her and her granddaughter from all harm, when I took them here with me from the Palace.

Hands go limp. Hilts leave my fingers, metal things clattering onto the floor.

A wrinkled, broken form on my feet specked with blood, clad in an old palace-servant dress. White stone wall behind it smeered with blood.

Dull grass-green eyes: filled with pain, filled with knowledge, filled with sorrow, life dimming rapidly.

Horror numbs me.


	15. 14: Tornac

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

14. Tornac

Rating: PG  
Warnings: mild sensitive topics  
Genres: Action, Character Study, Drama  
Word Count: 3,850

Pre-dawn, Day 23 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Banquet Hall at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

Dawn is not breaking yet. The small castle is dark and cold, forbidding, just like its owner most of the times. In moments like this I rue ever having consented to serve the Red Rider in his very stronghold. His mere presence can chill the entire fortress, especially when he is injured or furious, it seems. Like at present, for example: The banquet hall is nearly full with all the servants and guards employed in this place, courtecy of the forgetful old maidservant Ezeva (I do not know how the old grandmother – as we often call her when we are feeling nice and generous towards her – achieved that, seeing that she can bungle up the simplest jobs in any other times), but it is almost as silent as an abandoned grave. I notice that a few people are missing though, and nobody is about to speak of why they are gone … It is not a good sign.

Minnha is here, too, while I remember that she was asked by the Lord himself to … do something related to the family wing. Looking for once rather panicked and stricken, he had brought in – carried, cradled – an unconscious woman with warm-brown hair straight to the direction of the family wing two days ago and shouted for her to follow him, so that is only my conjecture. But she is _here_ now, sulking on the far corner: pouting and glaring at the door with arms crossed over her chest as if she were a manour-mistress who is terribly disappointed or displeased with something. Did the Lord throw her out of the wing? (That would not be a good oamen for her, and actually for all of us also, I would say.) But she has appeared here only a few moments ago, while I personally assisted the Lord when he had fallen right in front of his own holding's front gates terribly injured and barely conscious _yesterday afternoon_, supporting him upright together with three others of my fellow guards and bringing him to _that_ room, the set of chambers he had _never_ allowed anybody save himself in. Was he suddenly back to full health, just in _one night_ and without further assistance – visible assistance, visible summons to come into his private suite – from a healer? (Because I have no knowledge of Toran, our resident healer, being summoned anywhere these couple of days, either to treat the brown-haired woman (Or is she a girl? She looked so small … ) or to treat his gruesome-looking injuries.) But if not … ?

It is unthinkable. _Nobody_ would dare to order someone around when the Lord is home; and _nobody_ would willingly desert the Lord's orders once they have been given, especially not if that person has been directly, personally commanded by the Lord to do something. Not even Dorran, the steward of this home-fortress and Toran's older brother, would dare do _that_; and rumours have been circling among the guards and servants that he was rather close with the Lord when both were serving in the King's palace in Urû'baen.

There is something fishy going on in this place, I can feel it on my skin and in my bones, almost. Secrets that was _never_ out beyond the family wing – which has been accepted as an ordinary fact of life by everyone who works here anyhow – despite the Lord's extreme sense of privacy, are now clogging up the already-chilly atmosphere, and I do not like hit; I _despise_ it, in fact. I was raised as a practical, nonsensical person by my father, as the heir to his bladesmith trade and the only son among the five children in the family. The military life I was half-forced to lead since four years ago only cemented it further. Thus the present situation greatly discomfits me.

I start towards the girl intending to ask her why she is here – the doors to the banquet hall bang open – I freeze and gawk at the ten or so of my fellow guards who are rushing in with their faces pale and twisted in terror, and their clothes torn and bloody as if viciously slashed with a knife or a sword. What has happened? What is _happening_? The alarm should have been sounded if there is indeed an intruder in the castle!

But they look like they are fleeing, instead of going to gather reinforcements for the castle's defence … They look to be cowering from a monster in fact, judging from how they are immediately seeking to hide behind servants and guards, on the farthest corners possible.

Morbid curiosity tempts me to find out.

I fall right into it.

It is not easy though, weaving through the throng that are pressing together even closer after the arrival of the newcomers, terrified out of their wits by the spectacle of viciousness marked on the hardened warriors who are now are little more than sniffling little children hiding from the monsters of their own imagination.

Because, if no counter-attack was given (as can be derived from the mad rush and the evident terror of these previously-missing people) but those unfortunate souls are more-or-less whole anyway, then there is only _one_ person that must have caused those slashes.

And who knows, the rest of us may just be the next victims …

And it is just my _bad_ luck that, as I am putting a foot out of the press of people, the doors bang open again and frame the figure of the 'monster' that must have struck terror into those fellows.

A sight that I never thought I would ever see in my life …

The Lord rushes in, with wild fury written all over his face, brandishing his infamous red sword in his right hand and a silver dagger in his left. But _he_ is _wearing_ a long-sleeved loose silken tunic and a loose-fitting trousers – _sleepware_! It is … ridiculous! No, _ludicrous_!

My mouth opens on its own accord, laughter bubbles up my throat –

The Lord halts on his track for a moment, and his mismatched eyes find my own: wild, mad, furious, vengeful. The laughter is stuck in my throat, choking me, and turns into a faint gasp. Perhaps this is how a rabbit feels when the wolf is upon him … ?

I have briefly forgotten that the ridiculous-looking man is still _morzan_, the most dangerous person in Alagaesia other than the King, the coldest perhaps and the most ruthless and vicious as well, and argueably just as insane and powerful.

I freeze. I cannot move, even to hide, to make an attempt to save myself. His gaze holds me rooted to the spot, just like two and a half years ago when we met for the first time, just before a major battle against the Varden in the fields beyond Bullridge. He earned my morbid curiosity and my respect then, but now he only inspires awed dread in me.

And he is resuming his trajectory, straight towards me …

Ezeva screams – I know, because there is only one old woman employed within the Lord's stronghold. She flings herself on the Lord's path and throws herself to the floor (I wince in empathy for her old bones) and cries out, "Please, Lord, please … have mercy … " Is she _mad_? He will likely step over or _on_ her to get to me; he was like that, when we first met, and his red beast as well: He completely ignored the squawked protests of the captain of my battalion at that time, as his red beast took me in one of its fearsome talons and flew me in such a way towards Urû'baen, and he perhaps even mollified the King into releasing me into his grasp afterwards, even though the King seemed quite … interested … with me; and then I found myself following him here (riding again within the clutch of the red beast's right talon) and entering his personal service.

But still, it is heart-wrenching hearing it, as a powerful foot, though bare, kicks that mass of wrinkled skin and fragile bones aside. Bile fills the back of my throat as my ears catches the sound of bones crashing against the stone wall and Ezeva's weak, wavering cry of pain. It is _wrong_! _So_ _wrong_! I was always taught to respect my elders, to treat my grandparents – my two surviving grandparents as of four years ago – from both sides of my family with great care and delicacy, even if I would less to my own parents. But the Lord –

No no – but why is he kneeling beside her now? I cannot see what he is doing. I cannot understand _why_ he is suddenly different, why he no longer pursues whatever has been in his mind. Is he … meaning to … end her – ? But both his sword and dagger are lying haphazardly just a little out of his reach … What has just happened?

I wretch.

But despite everything, I start towards him tentatively, pulled once more by the morbid curiosity that pushed me to step in front of my cowering peers only a moment ago.

I hear him chanting something feverishly under his breath, his hands hovering above the sprawled, unmoving form of the old grandmother, glowing with a red nimbus of light. But most of my focus is on the specs of blood tainting the wall: trapped there, transfixed in a haze of horror.

The tugging touch of a large, powerful hand feels like a shock of electricity to me, like being too close to a lightning strike. I flinch. My sight shifts with the shock, and I gasp, just barely in time to stifle a yelp.

I look down, wide-eyed, at a pair of mismatched eyes: one small pin-like and ice-blue and the other large beetle-like and pitch-black. They look bleary with exhaustion and a whirl of emotions that I cannot – do not wish to – identify, but his gaze is still powerful enough to freeze me where I am standing apparently.

"Carry her to … to the family wing," he whispers through trembling lips, his voice hoarse. "Leave her in … in a room marked with a red slash on the door." Something seems to overcome him for a moment, but he struggles past it faster than I would if I were he. "Come back here," he hisses fiercely now. "Do not … do not run away. Come back _here_." Then he lets go of my hand and slumps right onto the old grandmother as if in a dead faint.

I straighten up, shocked for the second time in just a short moment, my mind blank. Only now I realise how silent the large hall is, silent as the graveyard, with not a sound of rustling cloth or breathing audible in my ears. It is as if I had gone deaf …

Order … he ordered me … Is Ezeva dead? But then why would he mention a specific place – and in the _family wing_ no less – to 'store' her? And what did he mean by "Come back, do not run away"? Where shall I go other than _here_? I _followed_ him to this castle, however part-willingly it was done; why would I run away from it?

But he is lying upon the old grandmother – how shall I take her if – dare I?

I eye his large-if-narrow form with doubt choking my lungs. I still remember _too vividly_ how he looked at me, how he rushed at _me_, with such a ferocious, predatorial expression on his otherwise noble-like complexion. What will he _do_ to _me_ if I _touch_ him or _move_ him elsewhere? But _how_ can I do what he has ordered me to do if I _do not_ do that?

But if Ezeva is not already dead, she may be choking on his weight, partial though it is. And perhaps the Lord wishes to heal her in private or …

I put the tip of my left fingers on the Lord's unmoving shoulder. It does not move.

I put my palm on his shoulder, ready to draw it back and flee if he 'bites' me; but again, no movement.

Steeling myself and my muscles, I put my arms under his armpits and haul him half upright. I shift him to lie on the floor, then skirt him to reach the similarly-dead-looking-but-smaller-body of Ezeva.

I cannot help it. Again driven by the morbid curiosity that has been dragging me onward so far, my hand flies to her neck to check for a pulse. If there is not any …

But no – there _is_! So faint, nearly not there, but there _is_ still. A miracle on its own, after she has been –

I shudder and stifle a gagging reflex with effort. The scene of the Lord kicking her aside like so much chaff on his path is imprinted deeply in my psyche, burnt in my mind like a brand, _sickening_.

Gently, gently, I must carry her gently: no jarring her, no tripping and bumping too so she will be safe …

Ironically however, as soon as my feet go past the doorway, a set of springs seem to be powering them, and it is as if I were flying down the halls and passageways through the eerily-empty castle. It is strangely dreamlike as well, surreal, as if I were not myself: just a spectre. Motions and scenes pass in a blur, and suddenly I am back where I was, and at my feet lies the unmoving, prone figure of the Lord where I left him.

I look down at the Red Rider, my master despite everything, then up at my peers who are still standing motionless where they stood before, then down again at the body. I can acutely feel a scowl forming on my face – I cannot prevent it – as well the sharp, heavy stares of more than fourty pairs of eyes all gathered in this vast chamber. Why have they done nothing to help him while I was gone? Are they too afraid? Or too revulsed perhaps? But he is _still_ _our_ _master_!

To be honest though, I do not know what to do myself, and I am as well scared of what he might do to me when he knows of my manhandling of him. Still, I crouch down after a last sweeping gaze throughout the banquet hall and again put a hand on the Lord's shoulder. And after a deep fertive breath, I give the hard, muscled surface a few pats.

He does not even stir.

I let out the breath I have been holding.

"Sir?" I whisper as close as I dare to his ear. "My lord? I have come back. Your will is done. What would you have me do now?"

Above all, above all my expectations, he stirs. I doubt he hears what I am saying though. But then what? What of what I have done that has alerted him?

Regardless, as he lets out a hissed groan, I scuttle back as inconspicuously as I can, dash towards the throng of his other employees, to the relative safety of the front line. (Stingy cowards: they refuse to allow me passage to the back-most line.)

And I do not know _how_, but the Lord is shifting to his elbows, to his elbows and knees, hands and knees, standing on his knees, on one knee and one foot, crouching with hands at either side of him – slowly, slowly standing up –

His gaze, blearier than before but somehow more focused and clear than ever, rakes us. Nothing seems to be missed by it, apparently: from the eyes of a hunting, protecting wolf, now I realise. He keeps us rooted to the spot and seems to enjoy it immensely; something must have greatly displeased him, done by someone of his employ: Minnha, the small battered group who barged in here just ahead of the Lord himself, or even I.

I shiver. How if it was _I_ who displeased him in some way or the other? What will he do to me? Courage in battle and courage in the forge is quite _different_ than courage to face a mad master who can so easily chop one to pieces, now I find.

And as if guided by the fine-tuned hearing of a hunting wolf, his eyes find mine _again_. He seems to be speaking to all of us, however, with a voice a little slurred by exhaustion but nonetheless clearly heard in the deafeningly-hushed hall.

"I want all of you to repeat the words I am saying, one by one, precisely as I say it, and with all the conviction you can muster."

Despite the fear of the Lord's wild, unexpected wrath, murmurs and clothe-rustling begin to impinge on the previously-absolute mute. Cold numbness drenches my entire being; I know – can understand, can empathise because I am involved – why people are disquieted enough to forget or perhaps even ignore the potential of being cut into bloody pieces: We are not free here, bound by our oaths of service and our loyalty to the Red Rider; but our oaths were – we were – we _are_ used to such. We are, however, not used to plunging into something that can very well mean more than physical or love-bound chains. Working more-or-less close to the Lord, a magic-user, we often hear him chant things in another, odd-sounding language, one that he used with Ezeva just moments ago in fact, and he has never been stingy with little trivia of knowledge anyway: He told us that it is very hard to lie or disobey in that language. And from the hints in his words and tone now, he wants us to _vow_ something that we _do not know_ in _that_ language.

And the bleariness is seeping out of his unnerving stare now, and those no-less-unnerving eyes are still trained on me …

"It is for protection," he says. But he says no more than that, letting the silence be absolute once again.

Protection for _whom_? I can taste the question hanging thick in the air. I can feel it reverberate within my own skull, sense it on my tongue and the back of my throat: bitter like the nightshade leves I was dared to eat by a few other children in my hometown, before my mother tearily rushed in and stopped me from dying on its poison.

But the Lord – the Red Rider, Morzan the Feared and Fearsome, the right hand of the King – personally and very _openly_ picked me out among the hundreds of soldiers set to battle the rebels outside Bullridge, introduced me _himself_ to the King in a private audience, set me up to living here with _his own_ figurative hands, and even taught me how to wield a sword correctly during some of his spare times, not only to forge them as taught by my own father. He has always been rather distant and aloof, but I can acutely feel his invisible touch in my life, and I am grateful for the elevated and special place he has gotten me into, and throughout the two and a half years he is beginning to feel more like a distant, odd relative to me than an unapproachable, daunting master.

He has taught me how to treat rumours and sift bits of truth from them. He has taught me how to recognise a magicion and steer clear from them or be wary of them. He has tempered me into not only a soldier but also a soldier with manners – according to his words – through the gruelling, tideous sessions with the old grandmother Ezeva.

And what have I done to deserve such attention, quite generous for such a private and reclusive personage?

I guard his gates and grounds sometimes during the day and sometimes during the night, for two and a half years.

Only _that_.

He _protected_ me during that one and only major battle I have ever participated in: He only said "Fight well," while putting the tip of his feverishly-hot forefinger to my temple, yes, but then what would explain the rush of energy and feelings of protection that I felt afterwards if not that of magic – magical wards?

And even though the ways have not always been pleasant and it was not he who did it some of the times, _he_ _taught_ _me_ to be a better man, something my own father always spouted but never taught me to do, not like when he had taught the arts of forging blades to me – whom I guess he only viewed as the bearer of his legacy and not his son.

What can I do to _protect_ the Lord now, to repay him even in just the smallest measures aside from what he assigned me to do anyway? Because guarding an undetectable, nearly unpenetrable castle is almost useless, unworthy, as payment for such a hefty debt.

Dare I take the plunge? Dare I _say_ _those_ _words_ even though I _do not_ know what they _mean_ and will likely never know?

The Lord's gaze is clearing, sharpening, thickening into a solid, grim determination. Now, if anybody dares defy him, I am sure he is going to exact quite a punishment on that foolish person.

And he is speaking now, _to_ _me_.

"Tornac. Will you start?"

My mouth and throat feel dry, too dry, parched, bitter but papery – I cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot flee – the determined wolf is going for the kill – I – what must I do? – debt, unpayed – protection, unreturned –

He speaks the words, three or for at a time, slowly and clearly; repeats again, slowly and clearly, then repeats again for the third time; demands me to repeat them all with a hard, cold, sharp look from eyes one like the abyss and the other like a spear of icicle.

I repeat the words, slowly and flatly and stumblingly, feeling totally numb.

He moves to another person, and then another, and another, and another, I suppose; but I can only hear things faintly now. My ears are ringing. My sight is flickering, dimming. My heart pounds, my lungs heave, but I cannot breathe.

I sense the _chains_. I sense them in my mind and on my tongue and in my chest: restraining but liberating, constraining but protecting – I cannot think, I cannot feel anything about it; but my debts are paid half-way there, at least. He said it is a vow of protection, did he not? He never lied to me, or any other as I know it; he would not lie too now, would he? I am used to acts of protection, however useless I have been feeling at that these two and a half years. I can bear this. And even if I must die for this unknown oath to work …

Well, he taught me to live as a better man, a better soldier with manners. Then I shall die as the best man, a faithful – though blindly so – protector with common sense.


	16. 15: Alna

Poisoned Truths  
Book 1  
By: Eärillë

15. Alna

Rating: G  
Warnings: intimacy (unrelated to sexual acts)  
Genres: Character Study, Dark Fluff, Drama, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort  
Word Count: 4,925

Pre-dawn, Day 24 of Summer, Year 74 of Second Age, Year 874 of Human Age  
_Master Chambers at Morzan's Stronghold, Northwest of Leona Lake, Foothills of the Spine_

I feel … complete; not only comfortable, but also complete, as if something that has been missing for such a long time is finally back in my possession. It is quite a great feeling, and I bask in it eagerly, greedily. Do not wish to let it go, do not wish to let it pass.

But, quite unfortunately, my body says otherwise.

Awareness trickles back into my being gradually and inexorably. The previous blissful numbness is nearly gone now, retreating back gently like low tide in a calm beach. My senses sharpen, and with their return I get a multitude of information that somewhat overwhelms me.

I am lying on something smooth and soft, strange-but-familiar, quite comfortable, and another – larger, heavier, bulkier – body, a male's body, is half-draped on top of me. But it is all right to my instincts, welcome in fact: a familiar position, a familiar scent, a familiar frame, a familiar soul to my own: my son.

The world is silent and still, vast and rather cold … Where am I? But if I am with my son now, then it means …

It is idiotic and ludicrous, I know, given that I am at _my son's_ mercy now and that I could be transported to Ilirea-which-is-no-more any time soon, but I smile anyway, feeling contented. My son is here, my firstborn so to say and one whom I took care the most and the longest: so close, so tangible, so familiar, so … I have no word for it, even to myself; but I just feel whole and full and contented, at a deep peace.

There is no way to judge time, with everything – even the lamps – being shrouded, but the cold, slightly damp air tells me that the sun has not risen yet. I must have slept throughout the night! A marvel, whereas I am usually just able to sleep for three or four hours at a time. But perhaps the energy I have used made me too exhausted to be properly up and about, even after he told me of the –

The _Eldunarya_!

My mind is brought into the state of full wakefulness with a start and a shivery jolt, as if an unconscious person being drenched awake by cold water.

It is _sickening_: sickening that I now know and have evidence of where at least several of the Eldunarya were gone to from its storage in the false Dorú Areaba; sickening that the previously lively, intelligent, characterful, and wise – according to their own kind – dragons are now dim and mad and vicious and broken just like my own son; sickening that _I_ _made_ _use_ of the energy from those sad shells like the Forsworn must have been doing, even though I did it out of utmost necessity … I always laughed and scoffed at people who spouted the phrase "necessary evil," and now I have been experiencing it myself. (It is quite unpleasant, when one's face is reflected on the mirror and one finds the ugly countenance of a monster staring back … ) And _my_ _son_, too, _is_ a _Forsworn_, however much I would love to deny the fact.

My fingers, shaking a little, find the sleep-tangles of thick, long, wavy hair spread on an unmoving head and a pair of muscular shoulders and also on my chest. It is _real_: _he_ is _real_. So familiar, so comforting, so _real_: coarse, malleable, wavy strands slipping in-between my fingers and felt by my fingerpads, head of the owner resting peacefully, trustingly, even submissively on my chest, large arms thrown over my body in an unconscious show of possessiveness and comfortable intimacy, and legs similarly crossed, tangled with my own smaller ones.

It is … painful, in a way, despite all the familiar things and gestures and routines that I am – we are – experiencing so far, I still do not know much about this new self of him – _too little_ in fact. I am relearning to know _my own son_, and that is some cold comfort to be had, aside from the fact that he is _real_, that he is still _here_.

The overgrown boy snuggles deeper into my embrace in response to the strokes, in turn cocooning me tighter. Involuntarily, my lips stretch into a smile, and my heart clenches with the bittersweet feeling that I can even taste on my tongue. He still reacts favourably to my touch at least; yes, a cold comfort; and I do not wish to imagine if he rejected my touch or refused to respond to it, as then he would have forgotten or forsaken his past – no, no, may not think about it, may _not_.

Well, but now I do not know how to leave the bed without also waking him up in the process. Because now that I am awake – fully awake – and now that one of his knees is draped on my lower belly, pressing it down by sheer weight, I become aware of the pressing need to relieve myself; and I admit, also of the urge to explore this chamber and its offshoots.

Strange that my mind is going more and more towards trivial matters instead of – no no no no no _no_! May not think about it, may not: for his safety, for my safety. It must be a closely-guarded secret among the Forsworn, just like it was among the Dragon Riders as a whole order. The repercussion of the information being leaked out will be _herendous_ and I cannot allow it to happen, cannot allow myself and _my son_ be tortured for any reason. But can I save the dragons on my own at least … ?

I freeze.

Save the dragons … Save them, hide them … But what about Orailesk? Are these Eldunarya in his 'permanent possession' so to say? Or are they only 'lent' to him indefinitely by … _him_?

I swallow. It tastes bitter now, no longer bittersweet.

Restlessness catches me, drives me, urges me. I cannot stay here – but he needs me, wants me still – no no at least not stay so motionless in here, go somewhere – _must_ go somewhere else.

I shift myself to the left, as Orri's body is sprawled on my right. It is hard though; he is rather heavy now. I cannot help from struggling, driven by the urge to vacate the bed.

But he is stirring too, scrambling feebly perhaps to regain his previous perch, his previous hold on me, muttering something that faintly sounds like "Né'a."

I freeze again.

But I do _need_ to go …

A sigh escapes my lips. I detangle the last inch of my body from Orri's limbs, free myself off the light silken blanket that has been covering the both of us, sit up on the bet – which I idly suspect must be stuffed with either cotton wads or spunge sheets or the combination of both – and look down at the silhouette of his blanket-tangled form. (The present ambient light does not allow me much in the way of sight.) A set of glinting orbs meet my gaze, radiating sleepy disgruntlement. I cannot help it, despite my earlier desire to leave – I reach out a hand and caress back the messy fringes above those orbs – they blink out of existence for half a moment, but return with a stronger glare.

"I shan't be long," I tell him. My voice, which I have thought to be soft enough for the present hush, rings in my ears, and I wince a little.

"Where?" A soft, croaky demand: petulant, suspicious but with an undercurrent of bone-deep exhaustion. But, belying the weakened voice, he slithers across the small distance of silken sheets that I have managed to create between the two of us and clamps his limbs around my waist and legs. It has been too long since I have last shared a bed with my son, and I have forgotten how strong his grip can be even when he is half-awake or half-asleep.

A little bout of chuckling vibrates in my throat. "Not far," I say. "I am only going to the bathroom. There is only one chamber-pot there, you know; and _boys_ and _girls_ are _not_ supposed to do things at the same time there, too."

He snorts a small chuckle of his own. His voice originates from around my belly – ha! Now I know where to attack – My fumbling fingers find his unprotected right ear and I insert my little finger into it, twirl the digit inside the ear-channel –

He yelps and squirms and tries to duck his head away from my fingers, bashing against my belly and causing twinges of pain to shoot from my lower abdomen at the same time, but – unfortunately – he still does not let go of me. So I tickle his neck and wheedles, "Come on, Greenie. I told you I'm not going neither far nor long."

Hmm. But how can I tickle his neck now? It is not supposed to be possible, since the shirt that I chose had a high collar, however odd it was to me at that time to be a sleepware. Come to think of it again, there is something … different, very different, on his present attire as a whole. I clothed him in a long-sleeved loose silk shirt with a high collar and a pair of loose laced silk trousers, given that they have been predominant in his wardrobe and thus must be preferable to him now; but now he is garbed in something more … revealing … ? Ah yes …

"Hmm," I muse aloud, as my hands, relieved off tickling around his head, lightly touch various parts of his body. As I have suspected, he is wearing a sleeveless silk collarless shirt which clings a little tighter to his frame than the one I chose for him, and his legs are bare until a little above his knees; a pair of yet-again-tighter-than-before silk breeches cover the rest of his legs and up. I would not be astonished or suspicious were we living in our old quarters in Ilirea during the heights of summer around a century ago. But here … ?

"What were you doing while I was sleeping, eh?" I wonder aloud. Because he must have gone out to do something and gone back to bed after taking a small bath and a change of clothes; and that because I, too, now notice that the smell of the pine-scented soap I used on the both of us has faded from my body, but it has not on his own.

But too bad: He scrambles away from me as quickly as he can and says no word.

But I _must_ _know_ so that I shall not be taken aback later. And the only way to know, for now, is –

"Ah!" My throat vibrates a little with a small exclaimed purr, and I can feel a toothy grin stretching my facial mustles to their limit. The three of us used to love this game: Dee, Orri and I; and fate apparently has not robbed everything from me, if it allows me to have the shadow of that game at present. So, ignoring the protesting pang in my lower belly as I bend forward, I lunge towards him and grapple with him to capture his head.

I win. Well, he always let me win anyway …

I encircle my arms around his head and neck, putting him in a headlock. I _shall_ get my answer. "Now, what?" I add an open-mouthed kiss in his ear for good measure.

His words are muffled by my chest and my nightshirt, but I can still hear it, and some of the exhilaration and merriment I have been feeling this past moment trickles away as I note no humour in his voice as he cries out: "Let go – let go – let go! Yes yes yes I surrender!"

I shift my arms so that his head is cradled in them instead and we can look at each other in the eyes. "Wait here, all right? I shan't be long," I insist. Then, to lighten the demand, I put a quick kiss on the tip of his nose before I let go of his head, which connects with the mattress rather heavily with a small thump and a rustle.

He does not answer.

The burst of merriment is completely gone now. I sigh. All interactions I have been having with Orri have been tainted and too short in some way or another so far, and it has turned out that now is not an exception. It is … quite painful, and awkward too, whereas we had such a close and intimate relationship before, ever since his care fell literally and figuratively into my hands around two centuries ago.

And how long have I been out of touch with reality, too? Because now my legs cannot support me well enough, as I try to walk across the span of rug towards the … general direction of the bathroom, at least. I cannot see well with how dim the ambient light is! Where are the light fixtures I left burning in some areas before I went to bed? I remember I lit some big candles in their wall brackets to illuminate nooks and corners, and also a lamp by the bathroom door. Now they are gone, and even the candles which are usually burning on the various side-tables littering this odd-and-vast chamber arre also gone. I do not know where to go! And I thought it was only the trick of my sight that the room is far dimmer than when I left it …

Rustling behind me. I stiffen, whirl around, nearly topple down, flail around a little, grimace with pain as my lower belly protests again. (Stupid, inconsiderate thing … )

But there, seemingly ignoring how I am gawking at him, Orri is sliding up the lid of the lamp sitting on the desk by the bed. And still neither looking up nor speaking, he carries the lamp waist-high across the rug, passing me by at least two yards, straight towards the same direction that I have been intending to reach: the bathroom. I cannot judge his current mood or even expression save that he is acting stiffly and mutely around me, since his face is shrouded in darkness – and perhaps it has been his intention all along, carrying the lantern in such a way? – but I follow him nonetheless. I do need to relieve myself, quite unfortunately.

And still, even as he puts down the lamp by the bathroom door and strides away back to the direction of the bed, he says nothing and refuses to look at me.

What have I done wrong _again_?

Anger – at him, at myself, at Tor, at those who kidnapped him, at those who warped them, at the world in general – and bitter, icy chill war for dominance in my body. Even as my physical needs are relieved by a quick trip to the chamber-pot and the wash-basin, the ache and lump in my spirit refuse to disperse. My interaction with people, even those that are outright or sneakingly hostile to me, have never been this hard and unpredictable. I seem to have been missing a few key bits of information thus far regarding my new relationship with Orailesk, and I hate it, but I am helpeless against it unless he is willing to open up to me – like decades ago – and tells me what I wish to know, what I wish to find out. And it is like wishing for time to unwind itself on my whim and return me to before the great disaster occurred, to when my family were yet one and whole and united, as mismatched as they – as we all – looked and seemed:; totally _useless_.

But even as I am sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite him, lit by the uncovered lamp that is sitting back again on the edge of the desk, words fail me. I can taste only sour bitterness in my mouth. Even my earlier question has fled me, faced by the grim, closed countenance and bearing he is sporting.

Orri never sat hugging his legs in the presence of his family unless he was feeling despondent, uncomfortable, angry, insecure, or afraid. But now he is clutching his folded legs so tightly with his arms that his tendons stick out, and his shoulders are made broader by the muscles I can see tensing beneath his sleep-shirt.

And still, he refuses to neither say anything to me nor look at me.

"Thank you for the lamp," I begin awkwardly. He nods stiffly. But it is not something a close relative should say – just _those_ words! – to one another for such a trivial thing, let alone a mother to her child and vice versa; not so formal, so unfeeling, so empty …

"Did you take out all the lights?" Another dumb, distant, unfeeling, totally wrong question – gah!

He nods.

"Why?" – `_Stupid stupid stupid!_` I cry out mentally.

He shrugs.

"What did you do?" Can I be dumber? Apparently yes.

"Things," he grunts lowly.

Do I still have the right to pursue a detailed clarification from him? But really, the question should be: Am I ready to face a volatile response?

Well, I am the Avalanche, those old mad elves said. And they are sadly a little true about it: I fear too little for everybody's comfort when I am pursuing something, or so many of my family members have confessed.

So, "Tell me, how many hours was I asleep?"

"More than Orri's fingers and toes counted together." So he can still be cheeky even in such a daunting mood? And in his old style of speech told by Dee and myself as well. A good sign. And I _can_ do cheeky: The both of us used to have lively banters throughout just one day, and we often did it with Dee too.

"Would it help if I added my fingers and toes as well?"

He nods stiffly. My heart sinks.

"How many?" I prod him tentatively. I am not sure if I really want to know; but I do _need_ to know.

"All," he bites out, still in a low growling tone.

Icy chill drenches my spirit, quenching everything else.

He looks up, right at me, at last, but it only worsens the state of my mind. "Né'a doesn't like Orri anymore, yes? Né'a wishes to just die instead of be with Orri, no?" he whispers. And he _sneers_; he sneers at _me_.

I lean back and suck a premature, involuntary breath. The ugly expression is as efficient and effective as a good hard blow right on my chest, to me. He _never_ did that to me!

And his sneer widens, as if he can hear what I am thinking, while my mental barriers are up and sound. It is as if I were one of the many people who called him vile and derogatory names, as if I –

But there is something … wrong, something that does not match the hatred on his face, in his eyes … and he is not looking right at me now, just slightly to my side.

"I'm sorry," I murmur. I do not know of what, but I am sorry: I am sorry to cause this look to be upon his face, I am sorry to be asleep – more like unconscious – for so long, I am sorry to … what? What else? To have made it be necessary that he tell me of those stolen Erdunarya in his possession? To have lingered nearby for so long that he would have a chance to take me here? To … to – no, _not_ to save him, save _them_, bring them back and try to heal them after I had gotten the lead to the freshest trail those twisted mockeries of elves had left? But the trail must have been a trap! And when I did arrive there, I only found … just … just the …

Bile fills my mouth. My head spins with acute nausea and horror. My sight flickers.

I blink, blink, blink, blink, and blink again. I can hear it – my breaths are choppy and harsh in my ears.

I swallow back the bile, try not to wretch, try not to throw it up. "I'm sorry," I repeat, just barely audible in my own ears. "I'm sorry for … for everything."

Silence.

I blink again. My sight clears out.

I can only … look, just look.

The grim, stiff, hard, cold man is gone. The large arms are now separated, clutching at each a knee. The face is invisible now, buried behind the folded legs. And the tense, proud shoulders are shaking ever so slightly.

I freeze. I cannot do anything, I cannot think. I just freeze, freeze and stare, and stir as he lifts up his head a little and swipes a hand across his face, hiding it from view still for a little while.

The eyes that look back at me – so, so vulnerable and hopeless and helpless – belong to my son, I cannot deny it, and the countenance slackened by emptiness is undoubtably his.

The gaze, expression, and bearing of a quasi orphan and deformed being who has always been torn between one set of family to the other and one category of wholeness to the next – _less_ – level.

I hate it. I hate myself. What a _mother_ I am, wishing for this familiar-but-so-wrong look on _my_ _own_ _son_ instead of the composure of a man on his own right, a man on his own power, a man of his own values – regardless of what the values are and to whom he is loyal to now?

"Just go away, if Né'a would," he whispers: hollow, empty; like in his childhood and teenage years when Dee and I had to send him to his birth-family as per that wretched agreement, even though we knew he would come back to us either wounded or malnourished or shaken or the three of them at once; like when we sent him out in a faint, foolish hope that he would be able to play with the other children and interact with people without Dee's overawing presence and my own 'unique' stature to gawk at, even though he had always come back either battered and bruised and furious or tear-wet and sobbing and listless.

My prediction has come true. My _so, so cold, so callous_ prediction that I so lightly and often and confidently told Nalyar in many occasions has come true: he is releasing me, letting me go, _completely_, without demanding anything.

Not even an oath in the Ancient Language to keep the presence of the Eldunarya in his possession a secret.

The Eldunarya …

"No oaths of secrecy?" I tempt him half-heartedly. "Not even to keep those Eldunarya a secret from the Varden?"

He just looks at me: empty, unwavering: left large and black and right small and blue, and all blank as if lifeless. Then, as if a long, long moment has passed, he whispers, "Né'a can expect the delivery of Orri's body then, probably piece by piece. Uncle Tore will get to Orri before those rebels will ever do, and then he will punish Orri and it won't be quick, and Orri would rather Orri's body is not eaten by the dogs or the crows afterwards."

I cannot detect even the slightest hint of humour or mockery or untruth, or even bitter cheekiness like before, in his voice and tone and gaze.

He is _serious_ about it!

Somehow, I am alarmed – no, _extremely_ agitated – by it. And I was the instigator of this all!

I shake my head. It is time to end this foolish, twisted interrogation. There are many more – _better_ – ways to approach the questions, other than this. And … the deliverance of _his_ _body_, in _pieces_ no less – !

I shiver and gag.

"How do you think I would feel then?" I ask him in a weak voice. But he just shakes his head in turn and shrugs, silent once more and looking down at his toes.

A sigh is choked in my throat. The bile refuses to return to my stomach apparently.

I will regret this; oh, I may very well regret this later; but there is no way I would like my life to go, because the other path will most likely end with his so-blasély-described herendous death on the hands of his own _uncle_, that I agree, and I cannot allow it to happen.

"I shan't go away, for now," I tell him, hoping my voice is not too uncertain or wavering. "I've just gotten you back. I shan't leave any time soon."

He looks up, stares at me, mouth agape. Why so incredulous? Has he no faith in my loyalty to him? Love and loyalty and all those things go two ways!

But he has only experienced it one way most of the times …

Oh. Oh oh oh.

"Né'a said sorry," he whispers: confused, disbelieving. "Orri thought it was the end, so Né'a could go away without burden."

Orri, if you know how much that statement pains me, even if you do not intend it to – especially _because_ you do not intend it to –

I choke.

"Né'a?"

I cannot breathe. That small, inconsequential word, so casually, trustingly, simply uttered – ! And I could not – cannot still … can I?

I have to try, try for him, for myself, for that bond we shared since he was a day-old newborn abandoned by his birth-father and foully-named by his birth-mother.

"Son," I whisper, in the Ancient Language, my gaze fixed in his, "my son. Orri, you are my son."

I _can_! I am _able_ to _say it_!

He looks even more confused. But no matter, no matter, it is done. I can say it! _He_ _is_ _my_ _son_!

"Né'a?" he repeats, more uncertainly. Perhaps now he thinks I am mad? Perhaps now he rues letting me stay here, in addition to having an insane-but-powerful uncle as his leader and his king? Perhaps … perhaps he rues me as his mother? Perhaps I should ask him to repeat some words in the Ancient Language, to prove to himself and to me that am or I am not his mother still in the regard of his heart and soul and mind?

But his gaze is so open, so frank, so unshakeable. There is no uncertainty in it, no hesitation, no second-thought – "Né'a? Is Né'a all right?"

I laugh: perhaps a might shaky, a might insane even, a might hysterical, but I do not care.

"I shan't go anywhere," I whisper to him. "Where would I go anyway? My son is here. The others are … I don't know where they are now."

I am speaking in the human tongue again, but he does not question me; he _believes_ in me.

I realise it now. I am a liability to him, a vulnerable spot in his armour, in his defences against so many people who just want him dead or wish to chop him into tiny, bloody pieces themselves, with him being _too_ trusting of me. This is not a right thing to do. But what is right otherwise?

"How … how if he comes here though?" My eyes widen in terror involuntarily.

He smiles sadly, bitterly. "Orri took care of it," he breathes. "Uncle Tor won't come within a mile from this place from any direction without hitting or dessembling the wards, and then Orri will know. Né'a will know too. Orri made sure of it." It pains him, I know, and I can see it presently in his eyes, in his expression, in his bearing; I know he adores Tor very much. (He did, and Tor adored him back.) But he does it still, for _me_.

"Thank you." I can say no more, cannot express all that I am feeling, that I am thinking, that I am experiencing. I just … "Thank you."

He uncoils himself and shifts, crawls forward a little hesitantly, takes my right hand in his – so _cold_! Too clammy, shaky – right hand. Messy fringes nipping at the back of my hand as he bows his head low over it, swept aside by his trembling left hand, _too_ cold strong brow pressed tightly against the back of my hand with the ferver of longing that is almost tangible to me, supported in turn by his own right hand – an age-old custom of the ancient human culture brought from over the sea that is mostly no more now, the gesture of either greeting or farewell from a child to a parent.

I raise his face up by my left hand on his chin, shift forward, encircle his neck with my right arm and his torso with my left arm, bring him as close as possible to me, kiss his forehead warmed a little by the previous contact, cradle his head in-between my right shoulder and neck even as I am trying mightily not to weep – a reciprocating gesture of either greeting or farewell in the same set of customs that my family have been observing faithfully, the gesture meant for a parent to a child.

He might just as well say, "Orri is home, Né'a."

And I might just as well say, "Né'a is home, and Orri is home now."

And yes, _I_ _am_ _home_.


End file.
